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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



SuDerintendents of Public Instruction 



STATE OF INDIANA 



By HUBERT M. SKINNER 



INDIANAPOLIS 

WM. B. RURKORD, PUBLISHER, STATIONER AM) BINDER 

1884 






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APR ^ 1918 




I. WILLIAM CLARK LARRABEE. 

TERMS 1852-54, 1&57-59. 

Mauy years ug<> in the old town of (Jreencastle there was a 
marvel of landscape gardening which to the literary world of 
America has become historical as Rosabower. Probably in 
this day it would seem crude, compared with the public parks 
of our cities or with the embellished residence grounds of 
many wealthy citizens of Indiana, and it doubtless owed much 
of its celebrity to its associations and to the memories which 
began to cluster around it. But to the people of two score 
years ago it was beyond criticism as a paragon of beauty and 



BIOGRAPHIES OF 



taste. To spend a day at Rosabower was to enter a new at- 
mosphere, which was inconceivably different from that of the 
prosaic, work-day life of most Indiana homes. Here one might 
meet with authors, educators, ministers and statesmen, with 
whom the place was a favorite resort. Here, in a scene of un- 
rivaled beauty, one might enjoy the breath of flowers, the song 
of birds, the hum of bees, the purl of the stream, the shade 
and the whispers of the trees. 

In a natural grove of maples stood a large, spreading beech 
tree, beneath whose leaves were written many of those charm- 
ing essays and biographies for which the master of Rosabower 
was famed. Where nature had left an opening in the trees 
there was a cultivated growth of pine, cedar, spruce, fir and 
tamarack shrubs, brought from the shores of the Androscoggin. 
These were ranged in rough concentric circles, and were de- 
signed to represent a pine forest of Maine. 

A copious spring gushed from the roots of a large elm tree, 
and formed a stream of clear water which wound about the 
grounds. Below, where a steep bank faced a low, broad ex- 
panse, a little dam had caused the formation of a minature 
lake, on which floated a bateau, or hunting canoe, brought from 
that almost unknown river, the Kankakee. 

There were beds of rare flowers, there were winding walks, 
there were trees of delicious fruits in and around Rosabower. 
In later days a tall mansion, designed by Tinsley, with hints of 
Colonial architecture, replaced the old-time cottage. 

In that mansion used to be 
Free-hearted hospitality ; 
His great fires up the chimney roared; 
The stranger feasted at his board. 

There groups of merry children played; 
There youths and maidens, dreaming, strayed. 
O, precious hours ! O, golden prime ! 
And affluence of love and time! 

As the years rolled on, one by one were missed the familiar 
faces at Rosabower. The grave of a daughter was made be- 
neath the old beech tree ; then the mother was laid by her side; 
and at last the father sank to rest, and the soul of Rosabower 
had departed. 

The old beech tree and the three graves have disappeared. 
The Maine shrubs have long outgrown their beauty. The or- 
chard has vanished before the march of the encroaching city. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



Much has gone from Rosabower. But its influence on the mind 
and heart will long endure. 

William Clark Larrabee was born at Cape Elizabeth, in the 
District of Maine, December 23, 1802. His parents were poor, 
uneducated and irreligious. Until the age of seventeen he 
worked upon a farm, with little opportunity for self improve- 
ment ; yet he availed himself of every means of advancement 
within his reach, lie went to school a few months. He read 
all the hooks of his neighborhood. He united with the Metho- 
dist Church at the age of fourteen, and was constant in his 
observance of Christian duties. 

At seventeen he left the farm and started out into the world 
with less than a dollar in his pocket. Making his way to Strong, 
seventy miles distant — a place famed in our day as an alleged 
birth-place of the Republican party — he found employment at 
the home of a physician. At Strong he found kind friends, who 
aided him to pursue his studies and afterward secured him a posi- 
tion as teacher of a small school. Here he found his mission. 
Teachers are born, not made; and Larrabee possessed the teach- 
ers' gift. He was licensed to preach, and delivered his first sermon 
at the age of nineteen. He was now advised by his friends to 
seek a liberal education, and his thoughts turned to Brunswick, 
the village to which as a farmer boy he had often gone to mill, 
and in which he had grown familiar with the exterior of Bow- 
doin College. Dr. Larrabee used to say in after years that he 
would as likely have thought of ascending the throne of Great 
Britain as of entering college at that time. Now, encouraged 
by small successes, he was emboldened to make the effort. 

He prepared himself for admission to the sophomore class, and 
entered Bowdoin early in 1825 — the year in which Longfellow 
and Hawthorne and Abbott were graduated. He taught dur- 
ing vacations and also during a portion of his junior and senior 
years. He achieved second honors in a class of twenty, and 
was graduated in 1828. Then for two years he was principal 
of an academy at Alfred, which position he resigned to become 
a tutor in the new Wesleyan University at Middletown. 

His first brilliant success, which won for him a place among 
the leading educators of the country, was achieved a Cazenovia, 
N. Y. He entered upon his duties as principal of the Oneida 
Seminary at this place in 1829. Here he proved an organizer. 
He revised and extended the course of study, classified the stu- 



BIOGRAPHIES OF 



dents, perfected the discipline, and built up the patronage and 
reputation of the institution. Dr. Bannister, of the Garrett 
Biblical Institute, has stated that he never knew another who 
had so much power over students in the way of reproducing 
himself among them, of stimulating the disspirited and of draw- 
ing all to him, as Mr. Larrabee. Among his students were 
Bishop Bowman and Dr. Wilbur — then youths — and scores of 
others who have since attained to eminence in various professions. 

In 1835 Mr. Larrabee returned to Maine to take charge of 
the Wesleyan Seminary, the leading institution of his denom- 
ination in the State. Here again he exhibited his great organ- 
izing power. In addition to his other labors he served as As- 
sistant State Geologist and as Trustee of the Hospital for the 
Insane. 

In 1810 the last general conference of the Methodist Church 
preceding the great schism assembled at Baltimore. To this 
notable gathering Mr. Larrabee went as a delegate. Here he 
was persuaded by Bishop Simpson, then President of Asbury 
College, and also a delegate, to remove to Indiana and accept 
a chair in that new institution at Greencastle — then a univer- 
sity in name, and now the principal college of a university in 
fact. He came to this State in 1841, and assumed the duties of 
Professor of Mathematics and Natural Science at Asbury. In 
the following year the professorship of Natural Science was 
created, and for ten years thereafter lie occupied the chair of 
Mathematics. It devolved chiefly upon him to classify the stu- 
dents, to reconstruct the course of study, and in various ways 
to exercise skill in organization, although he occupied a second- 
ary position in the faculty. 

It was here and during the time of his connection with 
Asbury that he devoted himself successfully to literature. He 
contributed largely to the Ladies' Repository and to other lit- 
erary periodicals, and wrote several books of a high degree of 
merit. His subjects were for the most part drawn from Amer- 
ican character and scenery. In one of his essays he described 
his home at Rosabower, and its name was given to a collection 
of fragmentary compositions. He was the author of "Asbury 
and His Co-laborers," "Wesley and His Co-laborers," and the 
"Scientific Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion." 

Rosabower was not more unique than its master spirit. 
He was the incarnation of intense purpose and energy. His 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



head was one which might have been taken as a model by 
phrenologists. His forehead was square and high. His eyes 
were keen and piercing. In manner he was brusque and dicta- 
torial. He was never idle. He retired at near midnight, and 
arose at four. Of his peculiarities and whims, his pithy say- 
ings and his odd doings, the legends of Asbury are full. Cer- 
tain it is that he left a deep impress upon the youth who were 
placed under his charge. He was associated in his college work 
with men of no ordinary ability — Simpson, Berry, Nutt, Dow- 
ney, Tefft, Tingiey, Wheeler, Benson, Lattimore and Hoshour — 
but of them all he was the central figure. And it would be an 
interesting book that would relate the history of Larrabee and 
his co-laborers. After eleven years of unremitting labor at 
Asbury, Dr. Larrabee exchanged his active duties for the emer- 
itus professorship of Oriental Languages and Literature. In 
this connection with Asbury he continued until his death. 
Asbury was among the colleges that early discussed the prob- 
lems of comparative philology and called attention to the treas- 
ures of the Sanskrit. 

Dr. Larrabee was in politics a Democrat; and though he had 
never engaged actively in political work, he was a prominent 
and influential member of the party. In the formation of the 
new Constitution he interested himself in securing a liberal pro- 
vision for the public schools of the State. Once he had been 
honored by appointment as Examiner of the Military Academy 
at West Point. He was now, in 18o2, offered the Democratic 
nomination for the new office of Superintendent of Public In- 
struction. He accepted the honor. Consequently he declined 
the almost simultaneous offer of the editorship of the Ladies' 
Repository, though he served as temporary editor for a few 
months. Dr. Larrabee was elected Superintendent, and en- 
tered upon the duties of his office in the tall of 1852. His 
labors were far more arduous than those in any other De- 
partment of the State Government. Without Court decis- 
ions or Department rulings to guide him, he was called upon 
to render opinions and establish precedents upon many points 
of the school law. He had to write thousands of letters to 
county and township officers, and to detect and so far as pos- 
sible to correct the innumerable blunders resulting from their 
ignorance or want of familiarity with their duties. He had to 
reorganize, in fact, the whole school system. He traveled over 



BIOGRAPHIES OF 



much of the State, personally inspecting and assisting in the 
work of organization. He had many controversies to decide, 
and much opposition to confront. There was a very general 
want of confidence in the validity of the school law of 1852, and 
at the close of his term several important features were hy the 
Supreme Court pronounced unconstitutional. Superintendent 
Larrabee was renominated by his party for the same office in 
1854, but shared the fate of his colleagues and was defeated, 
his successful opponent being Prof. Caleb Mills, of Wabash 
College, the Whig candidate. 

This campaign, the last success of a dying party, was char- 
acterized by the bitterest partisanship. Moreover, denomina- 
tional and institutional rivalries entered into the contest and 
intensified the popular feeling. During the ensuing term he 
was in charge of the Institution for the Education of the Blind, 
having been appointed to that position by Governor Wright. 

In 1856 he was again the candidate of the Democratic party, 
and was elected for a second term. The intervening years had 
been full of disorder. The school system had been almost 
ruined, for a time, by the collapse of a false and unconstitu- 
tional system. It now remained to build anew upon an endur- 
ing basis. Again it became his work to establish precedents 
and give opinions upon disputed points. His health declined. 
Personally he had met with heavy financial losses in various 
ways, and care and over-work proved too great a strain upon 
him. And the venom of party spirit sank into his heart. 

His term expired in February, 1859, but he relinquished his 
work in the preceding month. His wife died at that time, and 
he survived her only till the following May. His remains, with 
those of his wife and daughter, have been removed to Forest 
Hill Cemetery, near Greencastle, where a costly monument 
marks his last resting place and bears the following inscription : 

WILLIAM CLARK LARRABEE, LL. I). 
Born at Capk Elizabeth, Me., December 23, 1802, Died May 4, 1859. 



First teacher in Wesleyan University, 1830. 

Principal of Oneida Conference Seminary, 1831 to 1835. 

Principal of Maine Wesleyan Seminary, 1835 to 1841. 

Professor in Indiana Asbury University, 1841 to 1852. 

First State Superintendent of Public Instruction of Indiana, 1853 and 1854. 

In the same office, 1857 and 1858. 



STATE si l-KKlNTENDENT.S. 




II. CALEB MILLS. 

TERM 1854-57. 

Among the hills of New Hampshire, on the shore of the 
upper Connecticut and in the quaint village of Hanover stands 
Dartmouth College, venerable in its educational prestige and in 
its history of more than a century. Little dreamed the gen- 
erous British noble whose name it bears when, in 1769, he en- 
dowed his " school for the education of Indian youth" that this 
institution would exercise an influence national in extent in 
the world of letters. Dartmouth has been prolific of educa- 
tional workers in every field from ocean to ocean. The cause 
of education in Indiana owes much to New England and her 



10 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



colleges. Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Brown and Harvard have given 
us Superintendents of Public Instruction. It was at the New 
Hampshire college of Revolutionary memories, the alma mater 
of Webster and Choate and Chase, that Prof. Caleb Mills re- 
ceived his scholastic preparation for his life work. 

Caleb Mills was born in Dunbarton, K H., July 29, 1806. In 
.his boyhood he was a pupil of the public schools of the village 
in which he lived. At the age of eighteen he was prepared to 
enter college. He was graduated with the class of '28. After- 
ward he entered upon a course of theology at Andover. He was 
absent from the theological seminary two years — in 1830 and 
1831 — during which time he was employed as a Sunday-school 
missionary agent, and made extensive journeys through the 
Ohio valley, visiting in his travels the Wabash region, then 
known as the "Far West." Returning, he finished his work 
at Andover in 1833. 

All his energies had been enlisted in his religious work; but 
contact with the people of the West impressed him with the 
necessity for a system of general instruction — of free schools. 
His mind was filled with a vast scheme for free and public edu- 
cation of the masses of the people in the West. To his con- 
fidants such a scheme must have appeared visionary and im- 
practicable in the extreme; but to his clear, analytical mind 
and resolute heart it was thoroughly feasible and really neces- 
sary — a something which must be accomplished. Whence was 
the money to come for so vast an educational enterprise? The 
young States of the West must furnish it. Where were the 
legion of teachers to be obtained? Schools for higher education 
and for the preparation of teachers must be established iu those 
States. But how were the people, indifferent to educational 
interests, to be aroused to the necessity of making the exertions 
for carrying out such a purpose? This must be the life-work of 
thoroughly devoted, self- sacrificing men. Before leaving An- 
dover Mr. Mills received several offers of positions in Indiana 
and Ohio, and accepted the principalship of a new institution 
at Crawfordsville, Ind. — the preparatory department of Wabash 
College, soon to be organized. He received this appointment 
through his classmate, Edmond 0. Hovey, one of the founders 
and subsequently one of the professors of that institution. 

Before entering upon his work he was united in marriage with 
Miss Sarah Marshall. About the first of October, 1833, the young 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 1 I 

teacher and his bride started for their new home in the wilder- 
ness. Traveling by canal, by steamboat and by stage, they 
found the journey slow and toilsome. They arrived at Craw- 
fordsville on the eighth of November. Four of their young 
friends accompanied them, desiring also to enter upon the work 
of teaching. 

Prof. Mills organized his first classes on the 3d of December,* 
1833, and" commenced the work Which he there continued for 
forty-six years. At that time only about one-eighth of the 
children of Indiana between the ages of five and fifteen years 
were able to read. Free schools and competent instructors 
were rare. Indiana then held the lowest rank in the educa- 
tional scale of all the free States. 

One of the strongest claims of Prof. Mills upon the grateful 
remembrance of posterity is the authorship ot a series of quasi 
state papers, which are worthy to be preserved in our libraries 
as a companion volume to the Spectator and the Federalist. 
From the first he exercised a potent local influence, which grad- 
ually widened as his character and work became better known. 
But the facilities for reaching the masses were then incompar- 
able to those of the present day. Newspapers were few and of 
small circulation. Travel was slow and fatiguing. The tardy 
steps made in the educational progress of Indiana would have 
disheartened a soul less strong. Little could be done in the 
State at large until the State government should arrange for 
the establishment and support of the common schools in a 
hearty, energetic and liberal manner. During the administra- 
tion of Governor Noble, canals and railways monopolized pub- 
lic attention, and the State undertook an imperial scheme of 
public works. In that mad day of stocks and contracts it was 
idle to talk of appropriations for schools. In the term of Gov- 
ernor Wallace came the inevitable crash. The State credit was 
ruined; the people were distressed. Surely no thought could 
be given now to the needs of education. But amid the dis- 
heartening circumstances of the time a tidal wave of hope and 
cheer rolled over the country in 1810. Amid the wildest en- 
thusiasm General Harrison was elected to the presidency, and 
for the first time Indiana was controlled by the Whigs. It was 
less a triumph of political principles than of rural enthusiasm, 
of the cabin over the mansion, of the poor over the wealthy. 
Extravagant dreams of public and individual prosperity were 



12 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



indulged in. But the hopes of speedy relief and enduring 
wealth built upon the circulation of the United States Bank 
were buried in the tomb with the hero of Tippecanoe. The 
term of Governor Bigger wore away amid fruitless schemes for 
compromising the financial difficulties of the State. Then the 
scholarly Whitcomb, the collector of a noted library, and him- 
self a former teacher, was elevated to the Governor's chair. 
The State debt was adjusted. Now, indeed, after years of 
waiting, the time had come for a vigorous prosecution of the 
constitutional design with reference to the free schools. To 
the mortification and disappointment of the friends of educa- 
tion, the Governor's message dismissed the subject with the 
merest mention, as had been done annually for a dozen years. 
And now Prof. Mills, in whose mind the great scheme of pop- 
ular education had never been abandoned, conceived and exe- 
cuted an admirable coup cV etat. 

On December 7th, 1840, as the members of the Legislature 
were assembling at the Capital, there appeared in the columns 
of the Indiana State Journal a "Message" from "One of the 
People." In the dignified and courteous manner of a Governor 
addressing the General Assembly, the writer counseled the leg- 
islators on this subject of paramount importance. In startling 
and unquestionable figures he laid bare the illiteracy of the 
people, and earnestly pointed out its danger to the State. He 
had seized his opportunity. At a single well-timed stroke he 
thus placed himself at the head of the school interests of In- 
diana. His identity was long a problem, but as a public charac- 
ter he achieved an immediate and lasting popularity. Gov. 
Whitcomb acted upon the suggestions of the message, and in 
his own official communication voiced the same sentiments. 
The suggestions were not at once followed ; but the attention 
of all had been arrested, and ultimate success was assured. 

At the next annual meeting of the Legislature, in 1847, a sec- 
ond message from the same writer, who was still known only 
by the soubriquet of "One of the People," received general 
attention, and led to a popular vote on the question of support- 
ing the common schools. In this election the advocates of the 
schools achieved a complete victory. A third message, in 1848, 
commented upon the results of this election and the duties 
consequent upon it. A fourth message appeared in 1849. A fifth 
was addressed to the Constitutional Convention in 1850. The 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 13 

last message — the sixth — appeared in 1851. It was of the great- 
est value in its suggestions to the Assembly, upon whom de- 
volved the labor of formulating a new school law. In a literary 
point of view, and aside from their character of usefulness, 
these messages are possessed of high merit. They are very 
readable. Of the first of these President Tuttle says : " It is 
a noble message, packed with startling facts, spiced with humor, 
and everywhere grand with common sense. And that message 
was the starting rill that has since swelled into the river." The 
last message became a veritable state paper, the Senate order- 
ing five thousand copies printed for distribution. 

Our early public schools were dependent chiefly upon local 
taxation for their support. The results of such a system were 
sad indeed. In 1840 one-seventh of the adult population were 
wholly unlettered, and a much larger proportion were very 
ignorant. Educationally, Indiana stood sixteenth among the 
twenty-three States of the Union. Ten years later, in 1850, 
she had sunk to the rank of twenty-third in the twenty-six, 
lower than all the slave States but three. When the new con- 
stitution was adopted the question arose, to whom must the 
child look for his education — to his township or city, or to his 
State? If the former, happy the child who might chance to 
live in a wealthy and enterprising city, but woe to the unfor- 
tunate one whose home might be in a thinly settled and unpro- 
gressive locality. The constitution-builders took the broad 
ground that the State must educate its children; that an equal 
tax must rest upon the richer and poorer sections alike, for the 
good of all and to be shared equally by all. 

In 1854 Prof. Mills, now known throughout Indiana as the 
author of the messages, was made the candidate of the Whig 
party for the State Superintendency, and was elected. He serv- 
ed from November 8, 1854, to February 10, 1857. 

In 1854 and 1855 the amount of one hundred thousand dol- 
lars was expended upon the township libraries. Upon the 
Superintendent chiefly devolved the purchase and distribution 
of the volumes. 

In his journeys through the State, which were extensive, 
Supt. Mills delivered many public addresses. Perhaps the most 
famous of these was the one entitled, "Suggestions to Youth 
on the Right Formation of Character," which was appended to 
the report of 1856, by request of the State Board. 



14 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



Supt. Mills was a personage of remarkable interest to the 
people of Indiana. When he spoke it was not merely the 
words uttered or the ideas expressed, that enlisted the throng. 
He was a historical character. In him the mystery of years 
was solved. That impalpable being whose silent power had 
swayed the minds of men and the destinies of the State, but 
whose identity had so long eluded alike the friends and foes of 
progress, was revealed. The voice of one crying in the wilder- 
ness, was recognized; the John the Baptist of public education 
in Indiana, was seen and known. 

His work was beset with difficulties growing out of the un- 
constitutionality of one of the leading features of the new 
school law. In December, 1854, at the very threshold of his 
official term, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the 
provision ot that law for the support of the schools by special 
tuition taxes levied by the townships. Of this famous decision 
Supt. Mills speaks with cordial approval in his report, of 1855. 

After stating his (correct) opinion that only the local tuition 
revenue was affected by the decision, he remarks as follows: 

"If this view be correct, then we can see very clearly the 
reason and correctness of this decision of the Supreme Court. 
The Legislature is compelled by this to meet the responsibility 
of providing the requisite funds by taxation. They can not 
divide the responsibility with townships. Experience has 
shown that towuships of equal population will often differ in 
wealth more than 100 per cent. On the basis of such a differ- 
ence of valuation and equality of population, we shall have an 
inequality of 100 per cent, in taxation for a specific object, for 
which the constitution requires the State to make uniform pro- 
vision. * * * * The decision is rather a 
matter of rejoicing than of regret." 

In 1855 the General Assembly passed a law empowering cities 
and incorporated towns to levy local tuition taxes. As a result 
of this enactment a number of graded schools were established 
and enjoyed a sudden prosperity, which was destined to receive 
a sudden check. In January, 1857, the new law shared the 
fate of the law concerning the townships. The gist of both 
these rulings was the same. 

That the court fully understood the condition of things which 
the constitutional provisions designed to change, may be seen 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 15 

from the following extract from the opinion of Judge Perkins 
in the decision of 1857: 

"Under our former constitution we had two systems of com- 
mon schools, the general and the local; and the local had broken 
down the general system, and neither had flourished. This was 
an evil distinctively in view of the convention that framed the 
new constitution, and it was determined that the two systems 
should no longer coexist; that the general system should con- 
tinue, strengthened by additional aids, and that the counter- 
acting local system should go out of existence — should cease." 
(City of Lafayette cs. Jenners, 10 Ind., 76.) 

There was a great deal of confusion resulting naturally from 
these decisions. Several city schools suspended. But better 
far that comparatively a few schools close for a few months or 
a few years, in order that thousands might be kept open every 
year for all time! Better this than a continuation of the sys- 
tem of 1840-50. After all, the suspensions were not long. 

Years later, when the State provision had become so per- 
fected that many corporations received all the revenue they 
needed from the State apportionment, while some others, re- 
quiring more per capita to procure the same advantages, were 
still in need, a law authorizing special tuition taxes was passed, 
to equalize the inequalities. It is still in force, and is far more 
in accordance with the spirit of the constitution than was that of 
1855 (overthrown by the decision of 1857). By the law of that 
date the privilege of raising tuition revenue by a local tax was 
conferred only on cities and incorporated towns, where the re- 
ceipts per school from the State apportionment were largest, 
and not at all on the townships, where the receipts per school 
from the State apportionment were smallest. Now this privi- 
lege belongs to all the school corporations in the State — city, 
town and township — and thus the privilege is general, though 
the amount levied is not uniform. Moreover, Indiana does not 
now, as formerly, shift upon corporations the duty which be- 
longs to her as a State, but adds to the princely revenue de- 
rived from her magnificent school fund a liberal tax for educa- 
tional purposes. The present local tuition tax is comparatively 
a small matter. It is chiefly useful in corporations where the 
State can not supply as much as is needed, without supplying 
more than is needed in some other corporations, on a uniform 
per capita distribution. Often it is not needed. Nowhere is it 



16 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



unjust to other parts of the State. In reality, the school S3 7 stem 
remains, practically, a general system, such as the Constitution 
intends. 

Superintendent Mills made three large comprehensive re- 
ports, two of which were biennial reports to the Legislature. 
He called attention to the necessity of providing means for the 
preparation of teachers for their work by a system of normal 
training. He published an edition of the school law, with val- 
uable annotations. The State Teachers' Association, which 
had been organized near the close of Supt. Larrabee's term, 
was permanently established and became an important institu- 
tion. The Indiana School Journal was founded, and to the 
present day has been an advocate of the best interest of the 
schools, and an exponent of the best methods of instruction. 

Superintendent Mills was not a candidate for re-election in 
1856. On retiring from the Department he returned to the 
Chair of Greek at Wabash, where he remained to the close ot 
his life. He modestly declined the degree of Doctor of Divin- 
ity, though it would be difficult to mention one more worthy of 
that honor. His last great work was the building up of the 
Wabash College library. He died October 17, 1879, full of 
years and honors. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



17 




III. SAMUEL LYMAN RUGO. 

TERMS 1859-61, 1862-65. 

Leaning with bare and muscular arm upon the bellows bar 
of the smithy, beating with heavy hammer the glowing metal 
upon the anvil into forms of strength and usefulness, heaping 
the lathe-table with delicate silvery shavings of the iron, and 
thinking all the while as the flame roars, the hammer-blows 
resound, and the lathe wheels are flying, thinking of the les- 
sons of books and of human life — thus do we picture Elihu 
Burritt and Robert Collyer in their earlier years. And thus may 
we picture Samuel Lyman Rugg in his young manhood. 
2 — Biographies. 



18 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



These boys performed their work well, and realized the truth 
expressed in the poet's saying (afterward written) — 

"Since the birth of Time, throughout all ages and nations, 
Hath the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people." 

The forge was their college, and here they won honors and 
were graduated.' 

The most thoroughly educated men are not always the most 
practical or the most distinguished in their public services, 
Equally true is it that many who have not enjoyed the advan- 
tages of extensive school training have become leaders in the 
political, the religious and the educational world. Such a man 
was Superintendent Rugg. He was not a collegian. He was 
never engaged in the profession of teaching. Yet of the num- 
ber of noble and talented men who have stood at the head of 
Indiana's Department of Public Instruction, he ranks with the 
ablest and best. 

Samuel Lyman Rugg was born in Oneida county, N. Y., 
August 28, 1805, and passed his youth amid the picturesque 
scenes of that region. In the village school at Waterville he 
was an apt and faithful pupil, and here he prepared himself for 
college. The death of his father caused him to change his 
plans. Having a natural fondness for machinery and mechan- 
ical construction, he sought and obtained employment at the 
establishment of the village blacksmith. Here, amid his work, 
he continued his reading and stud}\ He developed a marked 
business capacity, which was recognized by his employer and 
patrons. In 1825 the Erie Canal was opened, and an immense 
emigration commenced from New England and the Empire 
State to the West. In this memorable year Mr. Rugg removed 
to Cincinnati, where he was employed in a large cotton thread 
factory, in which he was soon given entire control of the work. 
Here he exhibited high executive ability. He was a thorough 
machinist, a clever salesman, a skillful accountant. 

Preferring the life of a man who owns his capital, be it only 
a remote farm, Mr. Rugg retired from the factory in 1832, and 
removed to Indiana. He entered a tract of government land 
in Allen county, to the southeast of the town which had grown 
up about old Fort Wayne, and set about improving his prop- 
erty with commendable diligence. In 1836 he drafted a petition 
to the General Assembly for the creation of a new county. In 



STATE' SUPERINTENDENTS. 19 

response to this memorial Adams county was formed. In the 
location of the county seat, Decatur — his home — was chosen as 
the most suitable place. His possessions at once became valua- 
ble. In the same year he was elected county clerk and recorder, 
a position for which probably no other man in the county was 
so well qualified. The office of clerk he held for eighteen 
years, that of recorder being detached from it, after a time. 
Mr. Rugg's exceptional business talent was recognized in this 
extended trust, but the secret of his popularity lay in his integ- 
rity, generosity, and public spirit. 

In 1854 he was nominated upon the Democratic ticket for 
State Senator from Allen and Adams counties, and was elected. 
Few Assemblymen have filled a term of service more accept- 
ably than Senator Rugg. While he seldom made extended 
speeches, he was recognized as one of the most practical, care- 
ful and diligent members of the Legislature. 

In 1858 he was nominated by his party for the office of Super- 
intendent of Public Instruction. His selection at this time was 
most appropriate, and was the wisest that could have been made. 
What was then most needed was not a professor, but a thorough 
business man, a man of legal knowledge, a financier. Being suc- 
cessful in his candidacy, Mr. Rugg entered upon the duties of 
his office in February, 1859, on the retirement of Dr. Larrabee. 

The Common School Fund of the State amounted to nearly 
four million dollars and was held, in various amounts, in many 
different hands. An amount of over eleven hundred thousand 
dollars was distributed for safe keeping among the counties; the 
rest was unproductive. The counties were required by law to 
make good the amount received, should any be lost, and also 
annual interest at seven per cent. The revenue arising from 
this fund, together with that raised by taxation, was to be annu- 
ally apportioned by the State Superintendent, he being apprised 
of the amount ready for apportionment, through the reports o i 
local officers. The safe keeping of so large a sum of money, 
distributed among so many persons, and the faithful collection 
and application of the interest arising from it, could be secured 
only by the simplest and wisest possible system of accounts and 
the prompt rendering of reports. Instead of this, however, the 
system was ill-advised and unnecessarly intricate ; and as thou- 
sands of the officers concerned were unskilled in accounts, many 
being illiterate men, the result was simply chaotic. 



- 
20 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



The counties did not make good the losses of the amounts 
entrusted to their keeping, but were indebted to the Fund to 
the amount of nearly thirty-two thousand dollars, which they 
had wasted, to say nothing of the interest lost or squandered. 
The licensing of the liquor traffic had been expected to add 
to the school revenue annually about two hundred thousand 
dollars. In one year there was received from this source less 
than fifty thousand dollars. The deficit resulting from disre- 
gard and evasion of the law amounted to more than one hun- 
dred thousand dollars. There was a practice manifestly 
illegal but less disreputable, which seemed to have been as ex- 
tensive as the State itself, and under which the revenues melted 
away. The auditors and treasurers of perhaps all the counties 
deducted fees from these revenues. They appeared to satisfy 
their consciences in the matter, when it was investigated, 
claiming that custom made law, and that without deducting 
such fees they would be inadequately paid for their services. 
As stated, a vast amount of the Common School Fund remained 
unproductive of revenue; and as it could not constitutionally 
be diminished, was of no assistance whatever to the schools. 

This was .not all. From the establishment of the office, no 
State Superintendent had apportioned the school revenue aright. 
As it was impossible to obtain reports in time from all the coun- 
ties, the amount ready for distribution must be a matter of 
guesswork; and care must be taken that the estimate fall with- 
in rather than without the true limit. As a result, a residue 
remained annually in the State treasury, and was never re- 
turned. These residues amounted at one time to about three 
hundred and four thousand dollars: and all the while the 
schools were suffering from insufficient means. 

Even this was not all. Of the amount reported and appor- 
tioned, much was never accounted for by the trustees. In one 
year an amount exceeding two hundred thousand dollars was 
expended and not accounted for. In that year one hundred 
and fifty-nine of the trustees failed to make any report to the 
county auditors, and no one could know 7 their disposition of the 
money they received. Thus we see that the money which 
should have been ready for distribution was never fully re- 
ported; that of the amount reported, a considerable part was 
never apportioned; and that of the sum which was appor- 
tioned, a large amount was never again heard from. Had this 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 21 

state of affairs continued, we should have derived little benefit 
from the Common School Fund. 

In addition to this fund, the Congressional Township Fund, 
amounting to over two million dollars, was devoted to the use 
of the schools of Indiana, but under a different system. One 
section of each congressional township had been granted by 
Congress for the support of schools in that township. The 
fund consisted of the proceeds of the lands which had been sold, 
and the lands which had not yet been disposed of. The trustees of 
the civil townships were in charge of such lands and money. 
The latter was to be loaned, the principal secured from diminu- 
tion, and the interest applied to the support of the schools. 
Often the congressional township formed parts of two or more 
civil townships, and confusion in accounts resulted. Fees were 
deducted from the income, for the care and improvement of 
lands and the management of moneys. Losses of money loaned 
were of occasional occurrence. In fact, the results were scarcely 
more satisfactory than in the case of the other fund. 

Such was the financial condition of the school system in the 
time of Superintendent Kugg ; and in stating this condition I 
am but stating the result of his labors, for it is due to his un- 
tiring zeal that these facts were brought to light. 

Six hundred and fifty reports were annually due from the 
various local officers to the Department, and there were nearly 
fifteen thousand other reports, concerning schools, school reve- 
nues and school funds, with which these six hundred and fifty 
must agree. The common neglect of officers to make their re- 
ports promptly, and their occasional failure to make them at all, 
were not the only difficulties in the way of the superintendent. 
Those which were received were very commonly incorrect in 
some particulars. The accounts would not balance. It was the 
work of the Department to trace out the errors. In doing this 
a single sheet might require hours of toilsome study. When 
the error was traced, the report was generally returned to the 
sender for correction ; and when the officer making the report 
found himself utterly at a loss to explain the discrepancy, as 
often happened, Superintendent liugg would generally visit the 
county whence the report came, and investigate the books at 
the count} 7 offices in person. 

Those who expected to find in Superintendent Rugg merely 
an accountant were agreeably disappointed. While never as- 



22 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



suming the character of a teacher, he adapted himself to all his 
duties with earnestness and with success, availing himself of the 
suggestions of leading educators on many points. 

He urged upon the Legislature the propriety of making an 
allowance of money to cover the expenses of county institutes 
and of the State Teachers' Association, and suggested for each 
purpose the amount of one hundred dollars per session. Half 
of this amount has since been secured to the institutes, but the 
other part of his plan has been always disregarded. He 
arranged for the publication of his Department rulings in the 
Indiana School Journal, which thus became the organ of the 
office. He protested forcibly and repeatedly to the Legislature 
against the provision of the school law which authorized the 
pernicious practice of electing teachers by vote of patrons at 
school meetings, and pointed out the evils to which it led. He 
proposed plans and made estimates for a State Normal School, 
which he earnestly desired to see established. He presented a 
scheme for the extension of the duties of county examiner to 
those of a county superintendent of schools, pointing out the 
necessity for efficient supervision. His reports are among the 
most interesting in the files of the Department. None of the 
plans which he suggested to the Legislature are left incomplete 
or indefinite, but all are fully considered and developed in detail. 
They had at the time the freshness of novelty which they do 
not now possess, since many of them have been incorporated into 
the school system. In his treatment of the finances he is un- 
rivaled. His plans for the collection, the distribution and the 
productive investment of the funds show him to have been an 
economist of rare merit. 

In 1860 he was again the candidate of his party, but was de- 
feated by the accomplished and admired Fletcher, who succeeded 
him. When the life of that noble man went out before its noon 
and in the splendor of its advancing day, the venerable precep- 
tor of the great War Governor was appointed to fill out the un- 
expired term. 

In 1862 Mr. Rugg was again elected; and as Dr. Hoshour re- 
tired in November of the same year, he re-entered at that time 
upon the work of the Department. Again he addressed him- 
self to the task before him. There were at least four thousand 
letters to answer, during the term. He was arduously employed 
in correcting the reports. His salary was absurdly small. He 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 28 

was allowed but a single clerk, and at very low wages, while he 
could have kept four men besides himself busily employed in 
Department work. Till late at night the light shone brightly 
from his office window in the Blackford block. He was not 
satisfied with rectifying the reports for the current years, but 
extended his investigations of errors, year by year, back to 1842, 
when the old school law had been in force. The labor which 
this invertigation demanded seems herculean, but it was com- 
pleted, and the work submitted. As the statute of limitations 
was no bar to the recovery of large sums misapplied, the school 
funds were augmented by a very considerable amount. More 
than this, the State was awakened to the importance of a gen- 
eral reform in the financial administration of the system. He 
drew up a scheme for the better organization of the Depart- 
ment. He desired it to consist of a State Superintendent, a Dep- 
uty State Superintendent, a chief clerk, a second clerk, and a 
messenger. This scheme has never been fully realized, though 
the Department has been placed upon a much better footing as 
to appropriations. 

Superintendent Rugg issued reports to the Governors in 1860 
and 1864, and to the General Assembly in 1861, 1863 and 1865. 
He retired from office in the latter year. Subsequently he re- 
moved to Huntsville, Alabama, and died at Nashville, Tenn., at 
the home of hiss on, March 28, 1871. His remains were brought 
back to Decatur, his old home, and laid to rest in the village 
cemetery. 



24 



BIOGRAPHIES OF 




IV. MILES JOHNSON FLETCHER. 

TERM 1861-62. 

We realize the tearful cost of the War of the Secession never 
so fully as when we think of the young lives of golden promise 
which were sacrificed. For it was not from the ranks of the 
less noble, to whom the future gave no pledge, or of the ad- 
vanced in years, whose life-work seemed accomplished, that the 
Death Angel made up his harvest. The true and leal, the young 
and gifted and ambitious were alike marked for his own. 

In my mind are always associated two of America's sons who 
were exemplars of young manhood. Neither fell in battle; 
neither fought in any engagement; yet were they none the less 
soldiers of that war. Both aided grandly in rallying the young 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 25 



men to the defense of the flag; both performed important servi- 
ces in the organization of the troops; both gave their days and 
nights to the cause of their country; both fell at their posts of 
duty — fell at a moment, at a breath, early in the conflict, and 
seemingly at the commencement of their career. Alike were 
they distinguished by the speeial friendship of the two great 
executives of the North — of Lincoln and Morton. Ellsworth 
and Fletcher accomplished more, perhaps, in death than in life. 
The light which shone from the tomb illuminated the pathway 
of the brave and the true. The voices that called to duty were 
thenceforth voices from the Better Land. 

Miles Johnson Fletcher was born on the 18th of June, 1828, 
in the new village of Indianapolis, which has developed into 
the capital city of to-day. His father was a State Senator and 
an attorney of the highest standing. No name is more inti- 
mately associated with the advancement of all the material in- 
terests of Indianapolis than that of this family. Their influence 
has been recognized alike in the commercial, the religious, and 
the educational world. Calvin Fletcher, the father, was a self- 
made man. His vast wealth and the honors which he received 
were won by merit and by merit held. The sons were reared 
in a religious and cultivated home, and grew to manhood under 
wholesome teaching and discipline. 

Miles was the fourth son. He was strong in mind and in 
body, active and energetic in temperament, amiable in charac- 
ter and in manner. From childhood he was a general favorite 
at the Capital, and possessed natural qualifications for leadership 
among his companions. His cavalry company of youths, which 
he organized and commanded, is remembered with interest and 
pleasure. He received a thorough education. He was fond of 
study, and enjoyed superior advantages. He was prepared for 
college at the old Seminary on New York street, whose site is 
now marked by a memorial stone. In 1847 he entered Brown 
University, at Providence, R. I. From this venerable and no- 
ted seat of learning he was graduated in 1852, at the age of 
twenty-four, and returned to his home with high honors fairly 
earned. He brought with him a young bride, whom he had 
won at the close of his college life in New England. He was 
immediately elected to a new professorship in Asbury College — 
then called a university — and entered upon his duties in the fall 
of 1852. 



26 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



The selection of so young a man for a professor's chair in 
such an institution seemed a marvel ; but not less phenomenal 
was the establishment of the professorship to which he was 
called. Asbury College was formerly an institution of the old 
school, modeled strictly, in accordance with the old college 
regime. The doors were closed against female students. The 
classics were esteemed almost the sum total of education and 
accomplishments; and Latin and Greek, with Hebrew for the 
biblical students, constituted the classics. The sciences, modern 
languages, and modern literature were accorded a place, but in 
a field encroached upon, where they had to struggle for all the 
ground retained or gained. The work of the common schools 
throughout the State was not characterized by a single feature 
of the New Education. There was a slavish following of text- 
books in both truths and errors; there was almost a supersti- 
tious reverence for rules, without regard for principles. The 
work of primary grades was treated with contempt as a study 
for the simple minded and a charge for untrained boys and 
girls. Little dignity attached to the studies of youths, which 
are really the most valuable part of an education. Seeking a 
change, the public began to clamor for the study of the prac- 
tical, yet with but a vague idea of what the practical might 
imply. The time had come for the recognition of a New Pro- 
fession; for the ushering in of a New Education. The col- 
leges — the teachers of the teachers — must commence the work 
or give place to other institutions more in harmony with the 
spirit of the new time. Asbury College recognized the situa- 
tion, and took her place in the van of progress. The young 
professor took his place in a new chair of English Literature 
and Normal Instruction. Despite his lack of years, his work 
was grandly successful. He was a tireless worker, a faithful 
investigator. He had studied by observation the systems of 
instruction in eastern cities. He had read and pondered well 
the philosophy of education as held in other countries. He 
possessed the true and inborn spirit of the teacher. And thus 
he was enabled to present to his students the system of Pesta- 
lozzi — the education of humanity. 

After remaining two years at Asbury College he determined 
to prepare himself more fully for his life-work by a study of 
law; he therefore resigned his position and repaired to Boston, 
where he was graduated, three years later, at the Dane Law 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 27 

School of Harvard University. He was immediately re-elected 
to the chair at Asbury, and resumed his work. 

In 1860 he was nominated by the Republican party of Indiana 
for the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. The 
campaigns of the year were characterized by breathless interest 
and excitement. The best men of both parties were opposing 
candidates. The Republicans were triumphant. The popular- 
ity of Prof. Fletcher was shown in the election returns. Though 
opposed to a tried and able officer, his majority was seventeen 
hundred votes above the average party majority. The storm 
of war was now about to burst upon the Republic. How fast 
the world moved, then ! Secession commenced in December ; 
the Star of the West was fired upon in January; the Confed- 
eracy was organized in February; the new Administration com- 
menced in March ; Fort Sumter fell in April ; then began the 
march of troops, and then was ushered in the mighty conflict 
of the age. 

Governor Lane was inaugurated on the 14th of January, 1861. 
Two days later he resigned his high office to accept a seat in 
the Senate, leaving Morton to be the clubbed right arm of the 
Government upon the difficult western border. Supt. Fletcher 
entered upon his new duties in February. While reluctant to 
remain when his young friends were thronging to the front, he 
believed it to be his duty to administer the work of the office 
to which he had been called. But he performed a soldier's 
duties at the Capital. Frequently he was called from the De- 
partment rooms to drill the troops. He economized his time 
that he might share a soldier's labors. No face was more famil- 
iar to the regiments, save only that of the War Governor. 

The value of a thorough legal training to one filling the office 
of Superintendent of Public Instruction became very apparent. 
By far the larger portion of the school system of Indiana is not 
found in the text of the statutes, but in the unwritten law — in 
the decisions of the courts, the rulings of the Department, the 
opinions of the Attorneys General, and the orders of the State 
Board of Education. A very valuable edition of the school law 
was issued by the young superintendent in 1861, and aided ma- 
terially in the administration of the school system of the State. 

Supt. Fletcher engaged actively in the work of the institutes, 
awakening enthusiasm in the development of better systems of 
instruction. His report to the Governor was submitted in 1862 ; 



28 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



the report to the Legislature was left to be made by another 
hand than his. An evil which had occasionally appeared in 
the school system came to its culmination in this term. In 1860 
the trustees of one-fourth of the State had anticipated the rev- 
enue of the coming year, expending double the amount to 
which they were entitled, and issuing notes for half the ex- 
penditure.* The Legislature of 1861 wisely prohibited such an- 
ticipation of moneys, declaring that "said revenue they (the 
trustees) shall not permit to be expended * * in advance of 
its apportionment to their respective corporations." It re- 
mained for the trustees of avast number of districts to redeem 
the notes issued and to close the public schools, or to continue 
such schools by ignoring their just obligations. Supt. Fletcher 
chose the former of the hard alternatives, and in 1861 nearly a 
quarter of the public schools of Indiana were suspended. But 
he urged the people of all such districts to maintain private 
schools, and this they generally did; so that, really, the cause 
of education was but little retarded, while a useful practical 
lesson was taught. 

The subject of military training in schools and colleges was 
generally discussed in 1861, and Gov. Morton received numerous 
communications upon the subject, all of which he referred to 
Supt. Fletcher. The latter, in his report, took strong ground 
against a general military education of the people, and defended 
his position by sound argument. Yet he was by no means op- 
posed to military drill of pupils as a kind of gymnastic train- 
ing, provided the war spirit were eliminated therefrom. Many 
of his utterances are striking and epigrammatic. JSTote the fol- 
lowing: "Let us ever in time of war prepare for peace, but 
never in time of peace make it an object to prepare for war; 
let us rather prevent war by the elevation of all that makes up 
the internal life of the State." "The best guarantee against 
war is the education of the masses." "The educator of youth 
is equally patriotic with one who dies upon the field of battle." 
" How important is it that this office should be wholly separate 
from politics." "The mind, the heart, the body are all from 
God; they are a blessed trinity in unity." "Power, even ex- 
istence are not ultimate ends." 



•Doubtless much of tins expenditure was made in payment of indebtedness incurred in 
previous years. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 29 



The spring of 18(52 was a busy time for the Superintendent. 
In addition to the work of his office he labored lor his country 
and tor the soldiers. After the battle of Shiloh he repaired to 
the scene of the conflict, in company with the Governor. He 
went not as a spectator of the scene, but as an active worker in 
all that remained to be done. In carrying a wounded man from 
the field to a steamboat, he received severe injuries. He vis- 
ited the hospital and the battlefield to seek out cases of suffer- 
ing which he might relieve. He freely gave his money, as well 
as his labor and time, to the work. Returning, he labored 
earnestly and hopefully in the work of the Department, but re- 
solved to go again, on an errand of mercy, to the South. 

On the evening of May 10th he returned from a successful 
institute at Acton, and after a short visit home repaired to the 
Union Depot. Until the westward train started, he chatted 
familiarly with many old acquaintances who surrounded him. 
He was the picture of health. He was animated and full of 
the spirit of his work. He was busy with plans of usefulness 
for the future. And thus he went forth — to die. He sat by 
the side of the Governor while the train drew out into the night 
and across the fair prairies of Indiana. Long did the friends 
converse on the momentous issues pending, on the duties of the 
hour, on the problems of life. Midnight passed. They reached 
the town of Sullivan, near the boundary of Illinois. In the 
darkness a car from a side-track had blown down to the track 
upon which they must pass. There was a shock, a groaning of 
timbers, a moment of awful suspense. The Superintendent, 
who was at the window, sought to ascertain the nature of the 
danger, when he was struck a death-dealing blow from the ob- 
struction. Life was instantly extinct. 

It would be vain to attempt to depict the anguish of that 
scene. Governor Morton, referring to it in his message, says: 
" I was standing by his side at the moment of his death, and 
never before did I have brought home to me in full force that 
passage of Scripture which declares that ' In the midst of life 
we are in death.' Had I been asked a moment before who, 
among all the young men of Indiana, bade fairest for a life ot 
great usefulness and fame, I should have answered, Miles J. 
Fletcher.'' Thus ended that noble life. For the first time the 
Department was closed and in mourning, as its chief was called 



30 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



to the better world. The honors which were paid him in death 
were fitting the departure of such an one. His services to ed- 
ucation, his faithfulness to every duty, his patriotism and worth 
to his country are among the treasures of our history. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



31 




Y. SAMUEL KLEINFELDER HOSHOUR. 

TERM 1862. 

Rev. Samuel Kleinf elder Hoshour, D. 1)., linguist and Bibli- 
cal scholar, founder of churches of Disciples in Indiana, pre- 
ceptor and mentor of the great War Governor, author of the 
unique Altisonant Letters, first President of Butler University, 
fifth Superintendent of Public Instruction — was born in York 
county, Pennsylvania, December 9, 1803, and passed away from 
earth November 29, 1883. His brief term of office was but an 
incident in a life of usefulness which extended through nearly 
all the constitutional period of our history, reaching from the 
administration of President Jefferson to that of President Ar- 



32 HIOGRAPHIES OF 



thur. He was the representative of an old French family of 
Colonial America. The Hoshours migrated from the Rhine- 
land, near Strasbourg, very early in the eighteenth century, 
and settled in the Province of Pennsylvania. Their new home 
was in the midst of a community populated entirely by Ger- 
mans ; and for generations this family spoke German and 
French with equal facility, though, singular to sa} 7 , after a cen- 
tury the youngest generation were wholly unacquainted with 
English speech. 

The subject of this sketch was the oldest of six children. He 
was bereft of a father's care in his fourteenth year, and com- 
mitted to the charge of a guardian who contributed nothing to 
his support or education. Until the age of thirteen he worked 
upon a farm, going to school a small portion of each winter. 
The school was, of course, conducted in German, as were also 
the business, the religious service*, and all the conversation of 
that region. In 1819 he was employed in a little country mill 
by the kind-hearted proprietor, and performed the work of a 
clerk and mill man. Then the old Swiss teacher of the neigh- 
borhood died, and "Sammy" Hoshour was permitted a trial as 
his successor. He conducted the school satisfactorily, earning 
forty dollars clear of expenses. He then entered an English 
school, where he rapidly acquired a knowledge of the English 
language and of the branches pursued, and was prepared to 
enter college. 

By means of the money which he subsequently earned at 
teaching, and with the assistance of an uncle, Mr. Hoshour was 
enabled to enter upon a collegiate course in the English Classi- 
cal School at York. Here he completed two years of collegiate 
work. Seeking a change for the benefit of his health, he re 
moved to Virginia and entered the Theological Institute at New 
Market, where he was graduated with honor in 1826. 

Mr. Hoshour's chosen profession was the ministry of the Lu- 
theran church. Immediately upon graduation he became the 
pastor of a small circuit comprising three or four churches in 
the vicinity of New Market, and shortly after was married to 
Miss Lucinda Savage, of that city. His second pastorate was 
in Washington county, Md., where his influence and reputation 
rapidly widened ; and in 1831 he was installed as pastor of the 
large and wealthy church in Hagerstown. Here he remained 
three years, in receipt of a good salary, and enjoying an envia- 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 33 

ble popularity, when a change of religious views, resulting from 
careful and conscientious study and research, led him to sever 
his conuection with the church and with the denomination to 
which he had belonged from the age of eighteen. The bitter- 
ness of sectarian animosity in that day can scarcely be realized 
at the present time. None but a brave man could face the storm 
which must inevitably follow such a change. Mr. Hoshour was 
at once socially ostracised, and found himself without any means 
of obtaining a livelihood. Hence he resolved to remove to the 
.West, and resume his work as a teacher; and he chose Indiana 
as his destination. In his new religious views he found him- 
self in cordial agreement with the rapidly growing churches 
of Disciples, though he was not influenced to the change of 
opinions by the preaching of their ministry, but by independent 
study. Before leaving for Indiana he visited New Market, his 
old home; and here, as elsewhere, he met with opprobrium and 
scorn from his old friends. But he preached his new faith 
boldly, and baptized several converts before taking his final 
departure. 

On the 16th of September, 1835, Mr. Hoshour started upon 
his toilsome journey, and reached Centerville, Wayne County, 
Indiana, after a month of travel. He rented a small cottage, and 
engaged to teach in a rural school at twenty dollars per month. 
Reputations are seldom made as suddenly as was his. Immedi- 
ately the great value of his work was appreciated, and it was 
seen that the plain and unassuming teacher possessed a breadth 
of culture, a depth of thought, and a degree of skill in impart- 
ing instruction which placed him in the first rank of educators 
in the young State. In 1836 he was given charge of the Wayne 
County Seminary, at Centerville. Among his pupils in this 
institution was Oliver P. Morton, who entered at the age of 
fourteen, and who from the first and until his death regarded 
his teacher with filial affection and respect. Lewis Wallace 
was another of the seminary pupils who have since attained to 
distinction. So great was the reputation of Mr. Hoshour at 
the close of his first year at the seminar} 7 , that he was elected 
by the Legislature trustee of the State University — an honor 
then, as now, held in high esteem. Three years latter, while 
visiting the State University at commencement season, he was 
called upon to deliver an impromptu address. The assembly 

hall was filled to overflowing, the audience having congregated 
3 — Biographies. 



34 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



in expectation of hearing a noted lecturer, who was unavoid- 
ably deterred from meeting his appointment. Depending 
wholly upon the inspiration of the moment, Mr. Hoshour ad- 
dressed the assembly with such earnestness and eloquence as 
rendered the occasion ever memorable to his hearers. He chose 
his subject from the text of The Preacher — " Let us hear the 
conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his command- 
ments: for this is the whole of man." The University conferred 
upon him, at this time, the degree of Master of Arts. 

Shortly afterward he was elected Principal of the Cambridge 
City Seminary, and removed to Cambridge in the fall of 1839, 
and remained seven years. During his four years' residence at 
Centerville he had preached regularly to a small band of Dis- 
ciples, and had carried over one of the old churches of that 
place to his views. He built up a new church at Cambridge 
City, a revival in 1842 adding largely to its membership. His 
ministerial labors, which continued through the whole period 
of his life in Indiana, were most arduous. Indeed, they scarcely 
find a parallel in the church annals of the State. Throughout 
the whole eleven years of his residence in Wayne County he 
preached every Sunday except ten, and often twice or three 
times in a day, generally riding or walking many miles, and 
exposed to all conditions of weather. It was purely a labor of 
love. He received for his pastoral services less than fifty 
dollars per year. 

The Altisonant Letters were written here. They are the 
most perfect specimens of their kind of writing in American 
literature — perhaps in any literature. They were commenced 
in Maryland, in reply to a few letters of an "altisonant" writer 
of the local press. The idea was doubtless suggested to that 
writer by Franklin's characteristic advertisement for a lost hat. 
The "Letters" have been extensively used in colleges and 
schools. They reveal a mastery of words almost amazing. 

In 1846 Mr. Hoshour retired from the seminary, being in very 
poor health, and for four years traveled about, doing no severe 
work as teacher. He conducted classes at Asbury College, at 
the State University, and at various institutions in Cincinnati. 
In 1852 he purchased a farm near Cambridge, and thought to 
retire permanently from educational work. He had accumu- 
lated property sufficient to maintain his family in comfort the 
remainder of his life. But in an evil hour he invested in the 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 35 

Richmond and Indianapolis Railway. It was a most unwise 
speculation, and soon he found all his earnings swept away. 

In 1858 Mr. Hoshour was elected first President of the North- 
western Christian University at Indianapolis, now known as 
Butler University. With much hesitation he accepted, though 
he preferred a professorship to the presidency. After three 
years of very acceptable service he was relieved of his office at 
his own request, and transferred to the chair of Languages. 
He was an admirable linguist, reading Latin and Greek with 
ease and correctness arid speaking German, French, and Eng- 
lish with fluency. He occupied the professor's chair for four- 
teen years. 

One morning in May, 1862, shortly after the sad calamity at 
Sullivan, the Governor's Secretary rang the door-bell of Dr. 
Hoshour's residence on New Jersey street, and delivered to the 
astonished teacher a commission ot appointment to the vacant 
Superintendency of Public Instruction. The idea of adminis- 
tering a Department of the State Government had never entered 
Dr. Hoshour's mind. He gratefully accepted the honor, and 
served with distinguished ability, adorning the position with 
his comprehensive scholarship and ripe experience. 

One of the most glaring absurdities of the system — or rather, 
want of system — of that day was the examination of the teach- 
ers. There was no uniformity of requirements for license to 
teach, and in a majority of the counties the examinations were 
simply farcical. There was little in the law tending to a growth 
toward unity in this and other matters. To correct some of 
the abuses of the time and to suggest remedies for others, Su.pt-. 
Hoshour called together a convention of the County Examiners 
of the State. This was the beginning of the development of 
the system in the direction of simplicity and uniformity. It 
was the key to the solution of a hundred difficulties. At the 
present day, when country schools are given a course of study 
and "graded," like the city schools, when pupils have a uniform 
final examination and are uniformly graduated, when we have 
a common observance of Arbor Days, when the teachers have 
a fair and appropriate examination, the same in every county, 
and an established relation of work to grade of certificate, we 
can realize the value of Supt. Hoshour's method of systemiza- 
tion ; for nearly all the best features of the school organization 



36 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



and supervision of to-day have come from the conventions of 
examiners and superintendents. 

The ante-bellum schools had been generally taught by men. 
Except in the lowest grades of city schools, few women had 
been employed as teachers. Now, the young men were called 
away to service in the army, and it was difficult to find a suffi- 
cient number to conduct the schools. Supt. Hoshour urged 
upon the trustees the appointment of women as teachers. The 
same advice had been given by Larrabee, but had been little 
regarded. Not as a matter of mere temporary expediency, but 
of appropriateness and of right, it was now earnestly urged that 
women should be called to this new sphere of labor. They 
would improve the schools. They themselves would be im- 
proved. A score of arguments were offered, to repeat which 
now would be to carry coals to New Castle. The effect was 
gratifying. In 1860 the per cent, of female teachers was but 
twenty-two; in 1864 it was forty-two. 

Supt. Hoshour employed a skillful clerk to assist him in 
securing a correct compilation of the reports ; and this part of 
the work was accomplished very satisfactorily. The statistical 
portion of the report to the General Assembly was already in 
press, in November, when he retired from the Department, 
leaving the work to be completed by his successor. On the 
25th of November, 1862, the Department again passed under 
the control of Supt. Rugg. 

From the time of his withdrawal from the college faculty, 
Dr. Hoshour lived in retirement at Indianapolis. But even in 
his closing years his voice and pen were not idle. At the time 
of his death he was the oldest teacher in the State. The press 
of the entire country contained graceful and appropriate 
tributes to his memory. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



37 




VI. GEORGE WASHINGTON HOSS. 

TERMS 1865-68. 

A large, dingy brick building of four floors, in a campus of 
unsightly but fragrant locust trees; above, an erratic and 
weather-beaten clock of sonorous tones, whose strokes would 
indicate any hour from one to one hundred and twenty, as the 
machinery might happen to work, and whose hands sometimes 
experienced a phenomenal acceleration of movement on exam- 
ination days ; over all, a crown of five spires, irreverently termed 
the "spool- rack," flying beyond the tree-tops; — such was As- 
bury College, as I remember it. The seats in the chapel were 



38 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



blackened and marred with time. The steps of the stair-case 
were deeply worn with ceaseless tread. Over all seemed to hang 
the spell of departed years. To the east of the old college 
grounds was a large open square, which is now known as Mid- 
dle Campus and contains the noble edifice of Meharry Hall. 
Farther still to the east, upon a gentle eminence, in the tract 
now designated as the East Campus, stood the large old man- 
sion occupied by Bishop Simpson in the days of his presidency. 
Southward were the remains of the noted Rosabower,now known 
as Larrabee Place. There was little in the appearance of the 
solitary old college building to indicate the eminence of Asbury 
among the higher educational institutions of America. There 
was little that was remarkable in the surroundings, that they 
should be enshrined in the hearts and painted upon the mem- 
ories of men in all the continent and in many lands, who have 
been Asbury's sons. The riches which have come to Asbury 
in later years have extended her boundaries, have supplied new 
buildings, embellished and adorned with triumphs of the build- 
er's art, and have surrounded her with the sister colleges of a 
new university. But it is the Asbury of old days about which 
the historic associations cluster. The college is intimately con- 
nected with the history of the Department of Public Instruc- 
tion. It was the scene of Larrabee's labors; there it was that 
Fletcher began his professional training of teachers, and there 
Hoshour labored ; and it was at Asbury that Hoss pursued his 
studies and was graduated. 

George Washington Hoss was born in Brown county, Ohio, 
November G, 1824, and with his parents removed to Marion 
■county, Indiana, at the age of twelve years. He remained at 
home, busy with farm duties, and obtaining such preparatory 
training as the rural schools could supply, until he attained his 
majority, when he entered upon the work of a student at As- 
bury College. His studies were interrupted during two terms, 
when he withdrew for the time to replenish his pocket-book by 
teaching, and conducted the school at Centerville, made familiar 
by the work of Hoshour in former years. Subsequently he ob- 
tained continuous employment as a teacher in Mrs. Larrabee's 
female seminary at Rosabower, which work occupied only two 
hours per day and admitted of his pursuing his studies at the 
college at the same time. Here he resided with the Larrabees : 
and here for a time Hoshour made his home; and we may im- 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 39 

agine these three future State Superintendents sitting together 
beneath the old beech tree many an evening as the shadows 
lengthen and the low sun gilds the " spool-rack." 

Mr. Hoss was graduated with the class of 1850, and in the 
same year entered upon the principalship of the academy at 
Muncie. Two years later he removed to Indianapolis, where 
he continued to reside for many years. He was for one year 
teacher of mathematics in the Indiana Female College* for two 
years first literary teacher in the Institution for the Education 
of the Blind, for one year President of the Female College, and 
for eight years professor of mathematics in Butler University. 
In 1864 he was elected Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

Two years before, he had succeeded to the editorship of the 
Indiana School Journal, and he continued to conduct it through 
his terms of office and until 1871. When he turned it over to 
Prof. W. A. Bell, the subscription list had grown to sixteen 
hundred. 

Supt. Hoss entered upon the duties of his office in March,. 
1865. The General Assembly, at its recent session, had reen- 
acted the school law in a comprehensive statute, making sev- 
eral important changes. Physiology and the History of the 
United States w T ere henceforth to be taught in all the common 
schools. The expenses of the county institutes, to the amount 
of fifty dollars, were to be paid from the public treasury. The 
Superintendent had been for years an active institute worker,, 
and his long and varied experience as teacher qualified him to 
accomplish much good in this line of work. The new and in- 
teresting subjects to be presented and the additional workers 
now available gave to these sessions an interest hitherto un- 
known. 

There were other new features of the school system. A 
change was made in the basis of enumeration; children under 
six years of age were no longer to be enumerated or admitted 
to the schools. The county commissioners were allowed to de- 
termine the amount of time which the examiner might devote 
to his duties, and, as a result, this time was generally much ex- 
tended. School funds might now be loaned in amounts of one 
thousand dollars, instead of three hundred as the maximum, to 
a single individual; and now scarcely a county could meet the 
demand for loans. The remission of fines and forfeitures was 
rendered more difficult, that the fund might be further aug- 



40 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



mented from this source. The provision of the law of 1853, 
making it the duty of the State Board of Education to adopt 
the text-books for use in the State, was repealed, and the mat- 
ter was left with the trustees. It was provided that a tax be 
levied for the purpose of replenishing the township libraries, 
and in 1866 the State Board selected a list of books to be pur- 
chased, contracted for the supply, and distributed them to the 
townships on the basis of school population. While all these 
changes were made in the school law before the close of Supt. 
Rugg's term, most of them being the result of his recommenda- 
tions, they were put into practice in the superintendency of his 
successor. Honor is due to both for unwearied efforts put forth 
to secure this legislation. 

In 1865, Supt. Hoss was elected president of the State Teach- 
ers' Association. Two years later he issued a call for the col- 
lege faculties of the State to meet and organize a Collegiate 
Association, in conjunction with the other society, at its meet- 
ing in the city of New Albany. At a special session of the 
Legislature, in 1865, a bill was passed providing for the estab- 
lishment of a State Normal School, and became a law on the 
26th of December. This was a notable triumph of the friends 
of education. 

The convention of county examiners called by the Superin- 
tendent in 1866 proposed three additional amendments to the 
school law; they expressed themselves in favor of establishing 
a county board of education, of admitting colored children to 
the benefits of free schools, and of reviving the provision for 
the levying of a special tuition tax. 

Twice in the history of the State under the new constitution 
had the General Assembly provided for local taxation of the 
corporations for the support of the common schools, with a view 
to supplementing the amount received in the general apportion- 
ment of school revenues. Twice had the Supreme Court held 
such legislation to be unconstitutional, declaring that the 
support of public instruction must be general, and not local. 
It was deemed necessary to a general system of instruction 
that for the education of every child enumerated an equal 
amount of school revenue should be expended, and in accord- 
ance with this theory the only provision for the support of the 
schools was the pro rata distribution of the State school revenue 
among the corporations, according to school population. To 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 41 

increase the amount in any city, town or township would ne- 
cessitate a proportional increase in all parts of the State. 

After a careful study of the subject, Supt. Hoss came to the 
conclusion that an absolutely equal allowance of money for the 
education of each child was neither desirable nor just, since it 
could not procure equal advantages for all, and was in effect a 
most unwise discrimination in favor of the cities. When in a 
city many children are brought together in a large school, the 
expense per capita is less than is required for the equal instruc- 
tion of the same number scattered among a large number of 
rural schools. The money received from the State apportion- 
ment would suffice for the support of city schools during ten 
months in the year; but the sessions of the township schools 
were often limited to three months. To double the length of 
terms of the latter would necessitate the doubling of the 
amount apportioned to all the State, while to double the 
amount received by the cities would be a senseless prodigality 
of means. 

Supt. Hoss ably presented this view of the subject to the Leg- 
islature in his report of 1866. Acting upon the suggestions 
made, the General Assembly of 1867 enacted a new law au- 
thorizing special tuition taxes; and this has never been re- 
pealed or overruled. The other recommendations of the con- 
vention were urged in the report by the Superintendent, but 
not with equal success. In advocating a provision for the edu- 
cation of colored children, the Superintendent did not urge an 
enforced co-education with other children, but preferred to have 
the matter of school accommodation left largely to the discre- 
tion of trustees. He did not claim that colored children had a 
right to a share of the school revenue because of the payment 
of the school tax by colored people, for as a matter of fact that 
tax was not paid by them at all. But he claimed, and rightly, 
that colored pupils were manifestly entitled to a pro rata share 
of the revenue from the congressional township fund, since the 
Congress had distinctly stated that its grant of this fund was 
to the "inhabitants" — since its benefits were not limited to cit- 
izens. 

It may be well in this place to refute the old scandal that our 
State enforced tne payment of the school tax by colored resi- 
dents, while debarring them from the benefits of such tax. An 
error occurred in the act of 1852, the proviso of Section 1 hav- 



42 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



iug been accidentally dropped by the enrolling clerk of the 
House. The report of Mr. John C. Walker, chairman of the 
committee on education, led to an immediate correction of this 
error at the next session. In every edition of the school law 
from 1855 to 1869, the section providing for the levying of the 
school tax contained the original proviso, as follows: Provided, 
however, That the taxes aforesaid shall not be levied and col- 
lected from negroes and mulattoes. 

The report of 1866 was copious and very carefully prepared. 
This report — containing the first published directions for the 
conduct of county institutes — a circular letter from the Super- 
intendent to the trustees, two brief reports to the Governor, 
aud two editions of the school law, issued in 1865 and 1867 — 
comprise the official publications of the administration. 

Supt. Hoss was re-elected in 1866, and served until October, 
1868, when he resigned to enter upon the professorship of 
English Literature in the State University at Bloomington, 
Pres. Hobbs, of Earlham College, succeeding by appointment 
to the office. To Supt. Hobbs was left the completion of the 
biennial report of 1868. Dr. Hoss remained at Bloomington 
until 1871, when he resigned his chair to accept the presidency 
of the new State Normal School of Kansas, at Emporia. Two 
years later, being re-elected to the professorship in our State 
University, he was induced to return to Indiana, and continued 
his college work until 1880. He had performed a great work 
in the West, and was there highly esteemed. But to belong to 
that admired circle at Bloomington, whose work has been 
recognized in all the educational world, was an honor and a 
pleasure which he could not make up his mind to forego. 

The old college building, the scene of the labors of that emi- 
nent faculty, has disappeared; and some of the old professors 
are gone. But the new buildings preserve the identity of the 
institution, and the university has taken no step backward, but 
many in advance. 

Prof. Hoss is still busily employed as an educational worker. 
Since his retirement from the university he has been editor and 
proprietor of The Educationist, the leading school journal of 
Kansas, and has resided in Topeka. His life has been an event- 
ful one, for an educator's. As teacher, editor, Superintendent 
and organizer, he has been prominent in the great work of de- 
veloping the school systems of two States. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



43 




VII. BARNABAS COFFIN IIOBBS. 



TERMS 1868-71. 



The men of the gray coats and broad-brimmed hats and 
quaint scriptural phrases, for whom the Puritans of New Eng- 
land in old times reserved their choicest tortures, and toward 
whom even the historian Macaulay bore an ill-concealed antipa- 
thy — the Quakers, from the days of Perm to the days of Whit- 
tier, have been a most interesting class of people. Peaceful 
amid all the storms of war, rigidly truthful in all their speech, 
conscientious even in trivial matters of etiquette, simple in 
their tastes, broad in their views of life and of duty, they have 



44 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



won the respect and admiration of the world — even of those 
who have deemed the peculiarities of the sect fair subjects for 
humorous sail}'. 

As the City of Brotherly Love was planted in the Woods of 
Penn, when the wild men roamed over the surrounding lands, 
so the Quaker City of the "West was established in Indiana, in 
the home of the Aborigines. Later, another settlement of the 
Friends was made upon our western border. Richmond and 
Bloomingdale, like the various other Quaker settlements in our 
State, have been characterized by the true Quaker spirit; have 
grown quietly but steadily in material wealth ; have fostered 
education, temperance and peace. A representative of these 
communities, and of the sect which founded them, succeeded 
to the highest office in the school system on the retirement of 
Superintendent Hoss. 

A character familiar to the old-time citizens of Indiana was a 
learned and upright judge who performed the combined judi- 
cial duties of the Federal circuit and district and braved the 
hardships of long, fatiguing journeys and arduous labors. Ev- 
ery heart made welcome his advent, and was gladdened by his 
kindly smile. During years of illness and pain he continued to 
traverse the wildernesses of the young State and to hold ses- 
sions of the Federal Courts, toiling to pay off with his salary a 
debt wickedly thrown upon him by a business partner in former 
years — toiling to pay, as with his life blood, an obligation from 
which he had received no benefit whatever. At length the 
years were told. And when the last cold river was forded, the 
last bleak prairie was crossed, and the last unerring decision 
was rendered, the debt was paid; and the upright judge sought 
his chamber and his couch, and turned his face to the wall and 
died. 

At the remembered death-scene of Judge Benjamin Parke, 
in 1834, was a young man — the subject of this sketch — who for 
two years had been the office assistant and secretary of the 
Judge, and had been received into his home as a solace to the 
bereaved hearts whom the grave had robbed of an only son. 

Barnabas Coffin Hobbs was born near Salem, Washington 
County, Ind., October 4th, 1815. His early studies were pursued 
in the rural schools of his neighborhood, of which he has given 
us a most interesting description in his Early School Days. He 
was prepared to enter college at the County Seminary, which 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 45 



was conducted by the well known -John I. Morrison, since 
State Treasurer of Indiana. While ttie course at this institu- 
tion contained less of the sciences and literature, it was other- 
wise equal to that of our high schools of to-day which engage 
to complete the preparatory work required by the universities, 
and included some of the work of a college course in the clas- 
sics. At the home of his benefactor Mr. llohbs became ac- 
quainted with some of the most noted men of the time, and was 
surrounded with refining and ennobling influences. 

Choosing the work of the instructor as his profession, he ac- 
quired some valuable experience before entering college. At 
the age of eighteen he taught his first school term. His pupils 
numbered forty, and many of them were his seniors in years. 

In 1837 he entered the Cincinnati College. There were sev- 
eral colleges already organized in our own State, but Mr. Hobbs 
appreciated the superior advantages offered in Ohio. In one 
respect the best institutions of Indiana were very deficient. 
Natural science, in all its departments, received inadequate at- 
tention. Cincinnati was then a notable educational center. 
The great Queen City was a scene of busy life. The college, 
the market, and the court were filled with animating and in- 
structive scenes. Students of law, medicine, theology, engi- 
neering and art belonged to the circle of college acquaintances. 
Making the most of his exceptional opportunities to pursue 
studies in .chemistry, comparative anatomy and other sciences, 
Mr. Hobbs chose an elective rather than a regular course ; hence 
he was not eligible to the honor of a degree, on his withdrawal in 
1839, though he was recognized as possessing all that is implied 
by a thorough college training, and subsequently received a 
master's degree from Wabash — an institution whose honors are 
not misplaced. 

In 1839 Mr. Hobbs assumed charge of the boarding school at 
Mount Pleasant, in Jefferson county, Ohio, and remained at the 
head of that institution until 1843, when he was married and 
removed to Indiana. He established a school in the Quaker 
City, and conducted it for four years with marked success. 
Then the Society of Friends established in that city a collegiate 
institute, which they modestly termed the Friends' Boarding 
School, and he accepted the superintendency. His work was 
appreciated, and continued with gratifying results. 

In 1851 he wa.s chosen to the presidency of the Bloomingdale 



46 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



Academy, in Parke county — the county named in honor of his 
friend and benefactor — and entered upon the work in which he 
continued for sixteen years. In 1866 he was appointed by Gov- 
ernor Morton a member of the board of trustees of the new 
State Normal School, then decided upon, and was shortly after- 
ward chosen by that board to visit in other States various insti- 
tutions similar to the one about to be established in Indiana, 
and to obtain information on a variety of subjects connected 
with the construction of suitable buildings. In the same year 
he was elected first President of Earlham College, at Richmond, 
into which had developed the old boarding school of the 
Friends. President Hobbs performed the work of Professor of 
English and American Literature, in addition to his other 
duties, and won great praise by his able management of the 
institution. 

At the end of two years he was elected Superintendent of 
Public Instruction. Immediately after the election — in Octo- 
ber, 11-68, Superintendent Hoss resigned his office, and Mr. 
Hobbs was appointed by the Governor to fill the vacancy, the 
regular term not commencing until about five months later. 

Supt. Hobbs was thus left to make the biennial report of 1868. 
It is unique in style, and most interesting in substance. He 
presented the cause of the colored people in a masterly manner. 
On the 28th of July of that year the Fourteenth Amendment 
had been declared a part of the Constitution. All the colored 
people of the State were now citizens of the Republic and of 
Indiana. There was no reason why these citizens should not 
bear their portion of the burden of the school tax and receive 
their share of its benefits. They had not formerly been relieved 
from the tax which was levied for the erection and care of pub- 
lic school buildings, and it was right that a proportionate num- 
ber of school buildings should be devoted to their use, if separ- 
ate schools were to be maintained. 

Early in November of 1869 occurred an event which finds no 
parallel in history, and which is of special interest to the edu- 
cational world. A funeral fleet swept in majesty across the 
Atlantic, bearing from the United Kingdom to the United 
States, with honors seldom paid a king, the remains of a private 
citizen. The war-ship Monarch, the first war-vessel of the 
Royal Navy, was the funeral barge. Shadowed by nine great 
guns was the chamber of death, in which tall candles were kept 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 47 

burning, amid splendid draperies of mourning. A vessel was 
dispatched by the government of France, and one by our own, 
as convoys of the Queen's ship, and followed across the sea the 
remains of the greal dead. This was the return of George 
Peabody to his native land. In youth a grocer boy at Dan vers 
(now Peabody), Mass., from 1830 to 1847 a merchant in a great 
house of Baltimore, and from the latter date to his death, Novem- 
ber 4; 1869, a leading spirit in the business halls of the world's 
metropolis, the great philanthropist had steadily and rapidly ad- 
vanced in wealth until he had built up a colossal fortune. Three 
millions of dollars he had given to the cause of education in 
the Southern States of the Republic, and over a million more 
to various educational enterprises in America; and these to- 
gether were not half the total sum of his benefactions. 

The lesson of the generous deeds of Peabody exerted a deep 
influence upon the people of both worlds. Here it was felt 
that the work which he began must not stop with his death. 
Vast as was the extent of his gift to the South, the Peabody 
Fund was but a tithe of what was urgently needed for the aid 
of education in the South. It was not to be expected that 
another Peabody would soon appear. Equally hopeless was 
the prospect that the war-worn States of the overthrown Con- 
federacy would be soon able to secure an adequate endowment 
of their school systems by any scheme of State taxation. To 
Superintendent Hobbs was presented the problem of the hour 
in a special manner in 1870. He was in attendance at the con- 
vention of the Department of Superintendence of the National 
Educational Association at the Federal City. He was appointed 
chairman of the committee organized for the consideration of 
this subject. He prepared and presented a scheme for Federal 
aid to education in all the States where it might be needed. 
The various developments of his plan are at the present time 
receiving much attention from the government, the people and 
the press. 

In 1869 the attention of the school world was called to the 
admirable organization of the country schools of the Austro- 
Hungarian monarchy. Three years before, this great land had 
awakened to a new life. Absolutism had been replaced by one 
of the most liberal governments in the world. At the largest 
flouring mill on the globe, — in the double city of Buda-Pesth, 
on the Danube river — Americans had learned superior processes 



48 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



in the manufacture of flour. The new system of free schools 
was an equally interesting subject for study. While the country 
schools of Austro-Hungary generally consisted each of but a 
single room, they were conducted on the plan of graded schools. 
All had a regular and uniform course of study, and a common 
scheme of recitations, and in each school the pupils were care- 
fully classified. Superintendent Hobbs was among the first in 
this country to give attention to the subject. He readily per- 
ceived that with an efficient system of school superintendence 
the country schools of Indiana might be graded in a similar 
manner. In our State, as in most of the States, there were 
practically three systems, represented by the country schools, 
the high schools, and the State University. It was the idea of 
Superintendent Hobbs that all these systems should be con- 
nected; that the country schools should prepare pupils sys- 
tematically for the high schools, and that the latter should con- 
stitute a preparatory department of the State University. 

Bufc before all this could be accomplished there was a vast 
deal to be done. The law must provide a better system of 
school supervision; the chief officer of the schools in the 
counties must have more extended powers ; the people must 
be convinced of the worth and importance of such an arrange- 
ment; the terms must be very generally lengthened; and there 
must be many consultations of the educators of the State, and 
many experiments must be tried. The unification and perfec- 
tion of a system are matters of growth. 

As a first step in the right direction, Superintendent Hobbs 
favored the extension of the county examiner's office to that of 
a county superintendent of schools, with adequate compensa- 
tion and a liberal grant of authority in order to secure efficiency 
in administration. His efforts to secure this legislation were 
baffled by a singular political complication, which continued 
throughout his term of office. 

The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States was presented to the General Assembly at its session of 
1869. The Democratic members, who constituted a minority, 
generally held that, as a proposed part of the fundamental law, 
the amendment should be first submitted to the people. The 
Republicans, on the other hand, held that, since a ratification 
by the Legislature is sufficient under the Federal Constitution, 
the amendment should be acted upon at once. Both parties 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 49 

were equally determined, ard an exciting game at once began 
upon the political chess-board. On the 4th of March, when 
the subject was brought forward, a sufficient number of the 
Democrats resigned to break up the quorum. Check. Governor 
Baker at once issued writs for a special election of members to 
succeed those who had resigned, and on the 22d of March 
called a special session to meet on the 8th of April. Counter- 
check. On the 19th of May the Democrats again resigned to 
break up a quorum. Check, again. But the temporary Presi- 
dent of the Senate caused the doors of the chamber to be 
locked, before the resigning members could withdraw, and de- 
clared that the Governor had not yet informed him of their 
resignations and therefore their membership had not ceased. 
In the House the Speaker declared that a quorum means only 
a two-thirds majority of the de facto members, and that there 
was a quorum of the House remaining, though more than a 
third of the members had resigned. Checkmate. 

In 1871, at the regular session, a motion was made fo repeal 
the ratification of the amendment (the Democrats being then in 
the majority), on which the Republicans prevented further ac- 
tion by resigning to the number of thirty-four. Thus were 
three consecutive sessions of the General Assembly terminated 
in disorder, amid the wildest excitement. At such a time little 
could be hoped for in the way of school legislation. However, 
in the special session of 1869 there was a temporary truce, in 
which the schools received some attention from the lawmakers. 
It was provided that under stated circumstances the German 
language may be introduced as a branch of study in the public 
schools. It had been determined to establish in Indiana an 
Agricultural College, and under discussion the idea expanded 
until an industrial university was decided upon. It was located 
at Lafayette, in consideration of a generous donation from 
Hon. John Purdue, of that city, and was named, in his honor, 
Purdue University. It now holds the front rank among the 
industrial schools of the continent. The gift of one hundred 
thousand dollars from Mr. Purdue has been supplemented by a 
further contribution of fifty thousand dollars from the same 
philanthropic gentleman, and the State has dealt liberally with 
the institution. 

In 1869 Supt. Hobbs issued a new edition of the School Law, 

and in 1870 he made his second report to the Legislature. Dis- 
4 — Biographies. 



50 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



appointed in his effort to secure needed legislation, it remained 
for him to do what work he might to promote the efficiency of 
the school system as it was. He labored to secure the levying 
of a special tuition tax wherever it might be necessary, in or- 
der to extend the school term. He retired from the Depart- 
ment in 1871, having been defeated in the election of the 
previous year, and immediately returned to Bloomingdale, 
where he again assumed charge of the Academy. In all the 
years that have followed he has been a very busy man. In 1872 
he made a geological survey of Parke county. As trustee of 
the State Normal School and of the Rose Polytechnic, he has 
contributed largely to their success. 

In 1879 the Spirit moved the Friends of America to send a 
message to friend Alexander, the Emperor of Russia, and 
another to friend William, the Emperor of Germany. Dr. 
Hobbs was chosen to perform the missiou. At St. Petersburg 
he left with the Prime Minister a memorial, which urged that 
the Mennonites of the empire — a sect conscientiously opposed 
to war — might be relieved from military service. At Berlin Dr. 
Hobbs presented to the Crown Prince a memorial which advo- 
cated the settlement of international disputes by arbitration, 
rather than by war. For some years Dr. Hobbs has been work- 
ing in the interests of Indian education in North Carolina and 
Tennessee. For the enterprise undertaken by the Friends with 
reference to the descendants of Aborigines in those States, he 
has secured the sanction and aid of the Government. He has 
made an enumeration of the Cherokees of the Reservation, 
and determined their share of apportionments of revenue 
authorized by the General Congress — which share had been di- 
verted from its purpose by errors and frauds. In the Repub- 
lican State convention of the present year he was nominated 
a third time for Superintendent of Public Instruction, but was 
defeated, with all his colleagues on the State ticket. 

Dr. Hobbs is noted as a clear and forcible speaker, a logical 
thinker, a vigorous and graceful writer. Although he is ad- 
vanced in years his energies show no sign of abatement, and 
his mind and heart are occupied with busy labor. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



51 




VIII. MILTON BLEDSOE HOPKINS. 

TERMS 1871-74. 

A nomination to the Superintendence in 1870 brought into 
general notice a man of remarkable mould who, as a pioneer 
school teacher and preacher, had iu a modest way become some- 
what widely known in Indiana. He was never accused of amass- 
ing wealth, for the two professions which he combined were the 
least remunerative known among men, if we except the starting 
of a paper and the beginning of a law practice; and indeed he 
had tried both of these. He was not possessed of a college 
training. He had never been through even a preparatory course 
at school. But he was a wonderfully successful teacher; and his 



52 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



sermons, delivered in white school houses and red school houses 
and brown school houses and sometimes in well established 
churches, would have been voted very eloquent and powerful 
had they been preached in a metropolitan tabernacle and re- 
ported in the daily papers. Where did he obtain his education? 
Heaven knows. His mind was a cyclopedia of knowledge. He 
could teach anything — even the classics — successfully. Nature 
made him a sensible, practical, original man. Perseverance and 
integrity accomplished the rest. He won a place among the 
notable men of his day, reared a rather large family in comfort 
and in simple luxury, and wielded a wide and potent influence 
for good. 

Milton Bledsoe Hopkins was born in Nicholas county, Ky., 
April 4, 1821. When a young boy he removed with his mother 
and step-father to Rush county, Ind., where hisyouth was passed. 
From the age of fifteen he earned his own support and went to 
a country school at times, independent of assistance from home. 
Aided by a learned minister, he pursued studies in Latin and 
Greek. 

At the age of twenty-one he was married, and began his minis- 
terial work at Milroy, Rush county, where he remained one 
year. He was pastor of the Church of Disciples at Frankfort, 
Clinton county, for three years; then lawyer and subsequently 
minister at Noblesville, Hamilton county, for five years ; then 
editor of the Christian Review, a religious newspaper at Cincin- 
nati, for one year; then teacher in the country schools of Rush 
county for one year. After this he taught on week-days and 
preached on Lord's days in a country school house in Clinton 
county for four years; for a time he taught the town school at 
Lebanon, Boone county, and preached at various places. He 
made a ministerial visit to Canada, and on his return taught a 
term at Zionsville, Boone county; for six years succeeding he 
conducted an academy at Ladoga, Montgomery county; and 
then he removed to Kokomo, Howard county, and labored to 
establish a college. 

In 1870 Mr. Hopkins was elected Superintendent of Public 
Instruction. In 1872 he was re-elected. His terms of office 
were memorable in the educational history of the State. In the 
popular work of urging the trustees to make needed levies and 
to reform abuses of various kinds in the school administration, 
he was unequaled by any of his predecessors. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 53 

At a meeting of the State Board at Bloomington, in 1871, 
was devised an admirable scheme for the abolition of abuses in 
the examinations of teachers. Questions were prepared by the 
Board, printed upon slips of paper, and mailed to the county 
examiners, the latter being left to review the examination pa- 
pers and judge of the excellence of the work. Gradually this 
system, the best in America, has become perfected. The work 
of preparing the questions is divided among the members of 
the Board. The questions are read and adopted by a practically 
unanimous vote, in full session. They are printed by the State 
printer, upon tissue paper, and sent in envelopes sealed with 
red wax and stamped with the State Board seal, to the county 
superintendents, who in sending in their orders for lists must 
pledge themselves to observe the rules of the Board concerning 
the use of the lists. The seals are broken and the questions 
first opened by the county superintendent in the presence of 
the applicants for examination. A uniform systen of gradation 
of the papers has resulted from the annual conventions. 

The report to the Legislature, issued in 1872, was one of far 
more than ordinary interest and value. In the same year the 
Superintendent prepared a new edition of the school law. 

The question of excluding the Bible from the public schools 
became an exciting topic in many of the States in this term, and 
elicited much acrimonious debate. Our State was singularly 
free from the excitement which raged around it, and this was 
due to our admirable statute upon the subject. In its wording 
this law is most felicitous. It contains but thirteen words — 
" The Bible shall not be excluded from the public schools of the 
State." It contains no preamble of arguments to invite attack. 
Previous to 1865 there was no law on this subject, and none 
was needed; for the State Board was empowered to adopt text- 
books, and in the time of Supt. Rugg the Good Book had been 
adopted as a text-book in morals. When this power of the 
Board was abolished, the thirteen words were written b} T the 
Legislature. Supt. Hopkins made a wise ruling upon this stat- 
ute, declaring that the matter should be left wholly to the 
choice of the teacher; that while the latter could not be pro- 
hibited from using the Bible in a proper way, neither could he 
be compelled to use it. 

In 1873 the County Superintendency was established. The 
School Journal had urged the need of such a measure. Various 



54 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



county institutes had passed resolutions favorable to it in the 
preceding year, and that of Porter county had petitioned the 
General Assembly in the matter. The means for a long prayed 
for deliverance from many evils was now at hand. But would 
that means be judiciously and effectively used? The develop- 
ment of the school system in the direction of unity must be the 
result of consultation and united action. Following the plan 
of Hoshour, Supt, Hopkins called a convention of the county 
superintendents. On the 22d day of July this body assembled 
in the High School Hall at Indianapolis. From that time it 
has met annually, and has been of incalculable service to the 
State. Many were the questions arising as to the duties and 
powers of the superintendents under the new law. The nu- 
merous decisions of Supt. Hopkins were admirably clear, sen- 
sible and just. 

Another important law of the Legislature of 1878 was the 
provision for the education of colored children in the free schools 
of the State — a provision which has remained unchanged to the 
present time. Supt. Hopkins interpreted this law in a broad, 
liberal spirit, making it to mean all that the words could mean, 
in favor of the colored people. 

In 1873 an admirable plan for the gradation of country 
schools was put into operation in the schools about Chicago by 
Albert G. Lane, the School Superintendent of Cook county. 
The success of the new system was far beyond expectation, and 
the scheme is becoming popular in other States. Wayne 
county seems to have led the way in Indiana, a little later, and 
since then nearly all the counties have fallen into line. A few 
years after Mr. Lane's success in Illinois, and following Mr. 
Macpherson's success in our own State, Mr. A. L. Wade, of 
West Virginia, undertook a similar plan in his county (Monon- 
galia), and eventually published a work which directed very 
general attention to the subject of country school gradation. 

The re-election of Supt. Hopkins in 1872 has been mentioned. 
It has been the unvarying policy of his party to accord three 
nominations to the State Superintendents whom they have 
elected, and it is certain that Supt. Hopkins would have been 
nominated for the office in 1874.* It was generally believed 

•'■'But his untimely death did not make Supt. Hopkins an exception to this rule. He had 
Deen nominated for the office in 1862, but had declined the honor. His party (the Democratic) 
was successful in that canvass. 



STATE SUPFKINTKNDENTS. 55 

that even a higher honor awaited him in 1870. There are few 
who doubt that he would have been chosen in that year to fill 
the Governor's chair. 

But he did not live to see the day of his promotion. On the 
16th of August, 1874, he died at his home in Kokomo, after a 
brief illness. He was mourned as few men of the State have 
ever been mourned. And the many high tributes of respect 
from eminent men and from the press attested the esteem in 
which he was held by the people. 



56 



BIOGRAPHIES OF 




IX. ALEXANDER CAMPBELL HOPKINS. 



TERM 1874-75. 



For a second time the Department was closed and in mourn- 
ing. Upon whom were to devolve the duties of the office ? 
Many eminent educators were there in the State whose long 
experience in school work suggested their fitness for the posi- 
tion. But the thoughts of the Governor turned at once to the 
Chief Clerk of the Department — an officer whose duties and 
responsibilities had grown with the development of the educa- 
tional system. To be a successful State Superintendent requires 
much more than the ability to teach successfully. The Super- 



STATE SUTERINTEUDENTS. 57 



iiitendent is virtually comptroller of accounts of the school sys- 
tem, and must master the methods and forms by which the 
care of many millions of dollars is reported. He is the judge of 
innumerable points of law referred to him, and must be familiar 
with a long line of court decisions, Department rulings, and 
orders of the State Board. The full term of two years is al- 
most universally conceded to be too short, and now only eight 
months of the term remained. Relying upon the familiarity 
of the Chief Clerk with Departmental duties, Governor Hen- 
dricks appointed that officer to succeed to the vacant Superin- 
tendency. 

Alexander Campbell Hopkins was born in Milroy, Ind., No- 
vember 11, 1843. Until 1864 he remained with his parents, ac- 
companying them in their various sojournings. The elder 
Hopkins was a practical farmer, as well as a professional man, 
and employed his boys in the healthful exercises of farm work,' 
enrolling them among his pupils in the winter seasons. When 
Alexander attained his majority he entered the preparatory 
department of Wabash College, and shortly after transferred 
his membership to Butler University. In 1866 he entered upon 
a course in Kentucky University, where he remained for 
about two terms. He taught in the Female Orphan School 
at Midway, Ky., and was married to the matron of the institu- 
tion. Subsequently he taught a year at Ladoga and two years 
at Kokomo, when he received from his father the appointment 
of Chief Clerk of Department. 

As Superintendent he completed the biennial report of 1874. 
The institute season of the year was already past, and the busy 
days of compiling and testing reports were at hand. He de- 
voted himself almost exclusively to this work, making few 
public addresses and issuing no further publications. The work 
was well and successfully done. 

Since his retirement Mr. Hopkins has returned to the work 
of teaching. For the last two years he has been President of 
the East Illinois College, at Danville, and is now the President- 
elect of Salina University, Kansas. 



58 



BIOGRAPHIES OF 




X. JAMES HENRY SMART. 

TERMS 1875-81. 

The Old Granite State is famous for her mountains and for 
the men who have been reared among them. The eternal hills 
that stand round about the valleys of New Hampshire and the 
rugged crags that look sternly down have reflected themselves 
in the character or her people, in their stability and fixedness 
of purpose. And the ocean, reaching far to dash its surf upon 
her shore, places her upon the great highway where men and 
nations exchange the thoughts and the material products of 
the world. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 59 



New Hampshire is proud of her sons. They honor her in 
every field upon which they have entered. Few are there 
among them who have attained to greater eminence than the 
subject of this sketch. It was not the first State in the Union 
in which his high abilities were shown and to which his serv- 
ices were rendered, but the sixth. It was not the chair of the 
Governor that he filled, but that of the Superintendent of 
Public Instruction. But under his administration his Depart- 
ment took its true place next to the Executive in importance, 
and his State advanced to the front rank and stood abreast of 
the first and foremost in educational work; and in all the Re- 
public the voice of Indiana became the voice of a counsellor, 
and her steps were the steps of a leader. 

The pleasant New England village of Center Harbor lies in 
the region of the lake resorts, upon Lake Winnipesaukee. 
Here was born on the 30th of June, 1841, James Henry Smart, 
the son of a highly respected physician. The life of a New 
England village boy is familiar to all readers of American 
literature. If Massachusetts is the native home of American 
authors, ISew Hampshire is their Mecca. In poetry and prose 
they have depicted its scenes, and in those scenes are pictured 
the people who inhabit them. Here was passed the youth of 
Mr. Smart, and here he acquired his education. His studies 
embraced a full collegiate course, and his name is found upon 
the alumnal rolls of Dartmouth. Those studies, however, were 
not pursued in the halls of the old college, but in the excellent 
schools of his own village and under the tutorship of the elder 
Dr. Smart; and in recognizing the thoroughness and complete- 
ness of his education the venerable college at Hanover placed 
his name with that of Caleb Mills among the names of her 
sons. 

At the age of seventeen he commenced teaching in the vil- 
lage schools of the neighborhood. He had not studied in a 
normal school the science of pedagogics. AVith some that 
science — say rather that art — is intuitive. Who would teach 
the teachers were this not the case? By the exemplification of 
its principles he taught that art in all his teaching. It is the 
original men, the practical men, who have laid the foundations 
of American normal instruction. 

In 1837 one of the most distinguished of the foes of slavery 
entered himself into voluntary servitude, and for eleven years 



60 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



toiled fifteen hours a day with the intense application of a 
master soul. Until 1848, when the Old Man Eloquent fell to 
to the floor of the House chamber at the Capitol, and the silver 
cord was loosed and the golden bowl was broken, Horace Mann 
continued his unremitting labor in the interests of a better 
education. Immense conventions of teachers were conducted. 
Hundreds of lectures were delivered in many cities. Every 
mail ship bore to him letters from over the sea, with tidings of 
the schools in foreign lands. The mail boy staggered under 
the load of letters that came to his office from every part of 
America. Facts were classified, analyzed and assimilated, and 
the science of teaching was builded upon an enduring basis. 
Yet we do not owe that science all to the nations of Europe. 
The light which shone over the Atlantic met the light of the 
Occident returning'. America contributed her wealth of 
thought and experience to the educational summary of the 
world. And when in 1848 Horace Mann exchanged the title 
of Master Teacher for the mantle of Quincy Adams, it must 
have been his grateful reflection that if America had received, 
so had she bountifully given. 

Such were the days in which Mr. Smart's youth was passed, 
and such was the American origin of the science to which he 
has contributed. 

Early in 1863, at the age of twenty-one, Mr. Smart removed 
to the West, and accepted a responsible position in the public 
schools of Toledo, where he was re-engaged for the two years 
next succeeding. In 1864 there was dropped from the press a 
class-book containing ideas. It was a little book on physical 
exercises. This small and unpretentious work became famous 
in a day. In a hundred cities turners were soon engaged in 
shaping upon their lathes dumb-bells for calisthenic exercises. 
Classes were everywhere formed. In many schools music was 
made an accompaniment to the gymnastical drill. The book was 
the work of this boy in his twenties. While not a great work, 
it prepared the public for the consideration of scientific ventila- 
tion and other sanitary measures concerning schools, as well as 
of needful exercise for pupils. 

In 1865 there was a vacancy in the superintendency of the 
city schools of Fort Wayne. This city, the third in size in the 
State, is one of the oldest settlements in Indiana. Kekionga, 
its ancient site, was doubtless a well known town of the aborig- 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 61 

ines before Columbus landed on the Isle of the Holy Savior. 
In King George's War, the French and Lndian War, the desul- 
tory contest of the pioneers with the natives and the war of 
1812 it had borno a part. Four forts had risen successively on 
the bank where the rivers meet. The last had given its name 
to the city which grew up about it. A noble city it is that per- 
petuates the name of Mad Anthony. The provisions for the 
education of the school population are extensive and adequate. 
And such a school population ! Did ever another city of its size 
have so many children ? Where do they all come from? No 
matter as to that — they are there, and they are well trained and 
educated. If the Pied Piper of Ilameln were to come back 
from his long sleep and pipe his pipe about Mad Anthony's old 
fort, he would be followed by a larger crowd of boys and girls 
than ever he saw before. 

The eminent educator Dr. Irwin favored the appointment 
of the young principal of Toledo to the vacant superintendency. 
The selection of a man who had but just completed his twenty- 
fourth year to so responsible a position was almost unparalleled. 
But the selection was made, and the schools of the city entered 
upon a career of prosperity before unknown. Mr. Smart became 
ex officio a member of the State Board of Education — which po- 
sition he has held with but a slight interruption to the present 
time. My limitations as to space forbid me to speak at length 
of the decade of Mr. Smart's school administration at Fort 
Wayne. He was early recognized as one of the first of the edu- 
cational men of Indiana, and his reputation has grown with 
each succeeding year. 

In 1874 Mr. Smart was elected Superintendent of Public In- 
struction, and entered upon his new duties in the following year. 
The second Governor Hendricks, matchless orator and true 
patriot, sat in the executive chair. John E. Neff, the brilliant 
young lawyer, whose years were not yet the half of three score, 
was the Secretary of State. It was an era in Indiana's history 
marked by prosperity and material progress and able adminis- 
tration of the government. 

Mr. Smart's influence as State Superintendent was immedi- 
ately felt in every part of the school system. He issued numer- 
ous circulars of information to school officers, explanatory of 
their duties, and met squarely every question presented on any 
point. He labored to raise the standard of qualifications of in- 



62 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



structors. He jealously guarded the integrity of the school 
fund and the expenditure of the revenues. His first report was 
issued in 1876. It contained a masterly review of the whole 
system, and discussed in a perspicuous and practical way the 
questions of the hour. 

The Centennial year was a period which will he memorable 
for ages to come. Millions made their pilgrimage to the Quaker 
City to view the hall where Jefferson had declared that all men 
are created equal and are endowed by the Creator with certain 
inalienable rights — and where in our own time Lincoln had 
said of this principle, " I would rather be assassinated on this 
spot than surrender it." The United States invited the nations 
of the earth to unite with them in exhibiting the conquests of 
peace. Without profaning the sacred words might they have 
said, "Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the 
towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her 
palaces ; that ye may tell it to the generations following." The 
strongest bulwark of free institutions is popular education. 
Through the indefatigable zeal of Mr. Smart, the Indiana edu- 
cational exhibit was made a representative one. It would be 
difficult to depict the astonishment of foreign nations and of 
sister States, most of which had looked askance at the Hoosier 
commonwealth. Facts spoke more eloquently than theories. 
Those who came to say that Pestalozzi would yet come to build 
his kingdom between the Lake Michigan and the Ohio remained 
to say, "He is come." 

In accordance with the unwritten law of his party, Mr. 
Smart was renominated in 1876 and in 1878, and he was more 
fortunate than any of his predecessors in being elected for the 
three successive terms. 

In 1878 the Republic of France determined to prove to the 
world that she had recovered from the humiliation of her defeat 
in arms, and was again the France of old, a leader in the world 
of arts and sciences. The Gray Old Man did not live to witness 
the exposition, but died on the 5th of September of the preced- 
ing year. Marshal MacMahon, " Duke of Magenta and Presi- 
dent of the Republic," opened the great World's Fair. Mr. 
Smart forwarded thither an exhibit of the Indiana school sys- 
tem, and received the award of the grand gold medal diploma. 
The Centennial diploma and that of 1878 are framed and hang 
in the rooms of the Department. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. P>3 

Tn all the years of Mr. Smart's administrations he was called 
npon to deliver many public addresses. In distant States he 
spoke to immense audiences and wielded an influence difficult 
to estimate. 

At the annual convention of the Department of Superintend- 
ence of the National Educational Association in 1880, he was 
appointed chairman of a committee to outline an ideal State 
school system. He drew up the report personally, and it was 
unanimously adopted. The school system of Indiana more 
nearly approaches that ideal system than does that of any other 
State. 

The report of 1880 was called by the Superintendent his last 
report, and resembles a farewell address. In it every part of 
our school system is compared with the ideal system. Defects 
are pointed out and excellences are shown. 

In 1882 he received from the Indiana University the degree 
of LL. D. 

In a sketch of this kind it is impossible to give more than a 
tithe of the work of Mr. Smart. Much of it was of a nature not 
susceptible of being described. His greatest services were ren- 
dered through his influence over men. To secure support for 
needed legislation, to thwart an unreasoning popular impulse 
directed against that which should not be disturbed, to awaken 
enthusiasm, to repress impatience or prejudice — all this is a 
work which it is given to but few to accomplish. And they 
must know men and be sensible of opportunities. The power 
which they wield is as inexplicable as the hidden springs of 
human motive. 

Purdue University is one of the most liberally appointed in- 
dustrial institutions in the American Union. The limits of its 
scope are somewhat vague. The polytechnics of Europe are 
not of important service as guides for American industrial edu- 
cation, and the precedents to be found on this side of the At- 
lantic are neither numerous nor very satisfactory. To Purdue 
is committed the task of working out an unsolved problem. 
The President of Purdue is a young man. From his unsilvered 
hair and bis energy of habit, none would suppose him to have 
been for twenty years a central figure in the educational field 
in Indiana, and for a decade a recognized leader in the educa- 
tional councils of America. The end of this sketch will be but 
the commencement of another, to be written, it is hoped, long 



64 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



in the future, and to fulfill the promise of his early life. Since 
retiring from the Department Mr. Smart has been continually 
before the people. In 1881 was published his book of " Com- 
mentaries on the School Law of Indiana." In 1883 he was 
called to the position which he now fills. 

The present year has been characterized by an extraordinary 
educational enterprise, in which all the States of the Republic 
were participants. The National Educational Association de- 
cided in the previous year to conduct an inter-State Exposition 
in connection with its annual meeting of 1884. Madison, the 
City of the Lakes, was chosen for the assembly. The legisla- 
tive halls of Wisconsin were cordially offered for the use of the 
teachers of America in their notable undertaking. Mr. Smart 
was chosen Director of this exhibition. From the Lakes and 
the Dalles the teachers have but just returned to the duties of 
the coming year. Everywhere is told the story of the days 
at Madison. The memories of gray rocks and rushing waters 
and cool retreats from summer heat are but a part of the 
recollections of the summer tour. The triumphs of education 
in every State and Territory in our broad domain ; the appeals 
for a better education of the head, the heart and the hand ; the 
words of encouragement and cheer which were exchanged be- 
tween the North and the South, the East and the West; the 
words spoken face to face by those who had been heard by the 
multitude of teachers only through their pens and seen only in 
the handiwork of limners and engravers — all these make up 
the recollections of the summer days at Madison. And the 
wreath of success which belongs to the brow of him whose 
work it was to direct and to secure the results, is but another 
added to those already won. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



65 




xl john Mcknight bloss. 

TERM 1881-83. 

"I call, therefore, a complete, generous education, that which 
fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously, all 
the offices, both public and private, of peace and of war." 
Such is the definition given by the greatest scholar of the seven- 
teenth century. In the school the foundations should be laid 
broad and deep for the culture of the mind and the training of 
the heart to virtue. Such an education is a fitting preparation 
for any life-work. 

The Hoosier schoolmaster and the Hoosier school boy had 

much to do with the American Conflict. I write of one whose 
5 — Biographies. 



66 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



purity of character was an example to his comrades in the days 
when youths were freed from the restraints of home society and 
exposed to the corrupting influences of the camp, and whose 
blameless life has to-day a power which precept alone can never 
exert; of one who has adorned the profession to which his 
years have been given, and whose administration of the high 
office of Superintendent stands in our history as a very valua- 
ble service to the cause of education in Indiana. 

John McKnight Bloss was born in Washington county, near 
New Philadelphia, January 21, 1839. The community in which 
he was reared was composed largely of Presbyterian Seceders 
— the fiery and zealous U. P.'s of the present day, 'who oppose 
capital punishment and secret societies, and sing psalms like 
Havelock's Saints. His early education was received from 
George Clark, a West Point cadet — the son of Adjutant Gen- 
eral Maston G. Clark, of Governor Harrison's time. In his fif- 
teenth year he entered the school of Rev. John M. Stocker, in 
the village; and on the 20th of September, 1854, he was admit- 
ted to the preparatory department of Hanover College — the 
oldest institution of the kind in Indiana. In the picturesque 
village of the same name he passed the uext six years at his 
studies, with slight interruptions when he taught for a term or 
two in district schools. In 18(30 he was graduated with honor. 
In the fall of that year he was engaged as teacher of the town 
school of Livonia, where he remained until the breaking out 
of the gigantic war of the States. 

Shortly after the reduction of Fort Sumter by the Confed- 
erate batteries, the young teacher presented himself at the 
desk of the War Governor, in the Capitol, and tendered the 
services of the youths of Livonia, who desired to form a com- 
pany. 

"I am sorry I can not accept them," said Morton, "but we 
have already sixty-six companies more than the quota of the 
State/' 

It was late in the summer before an opportunity was pre- 
sented for enlistment. One day there arrived at the capital a 
company* which was soon to become singularly renowned — 
a company of men of splendid physique, whose intelligent 
faces bore out the impression couveye'd by their strength of 
form. At their head was Captain Kopp, six and one-third feet 

* Company F, 27th Indiana Volunteers. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 07 



tall, with Lieutenant David Van Buskirk, whose height lacked 
scarce an inch of seven feet. In this strange company, per- 
haps the tallest in the world, which would have delighted the 
heart of the eccentric Frederick of Prussia, was Sergeant 
Bloss, a strong and manly youth of more than average stature. 

The first baptism of fire was received by the Tall Boys in 
October, when they witnessed at Ball's Bluff that most unfor- 
tunate engagement in which so many brave men were cut off 
like the Helvetians at the Arar. The autumn wore away, and 
there was no further conflict with the enemy in the field. But 
the enemy of the camp, fierce and relentless fever, raged with 
awful visitation throughout the army. On the 10th of Novem- 
ber the name of Sergeant Bloss was entered upon the hospital 
rolls. But he did not know of it. A strange diablerie of frozen 
flames and burning rivers and flashes in darkness and jar of 
earthly and unearthly sounds held carnival in his brain. Nor 
was he conscious when he was borne down the Potomac in a 
scow, his form extended across a dead comrade and half sub- 
merged in the slimy ooze of the vessel. Long seemed Azrael 
to wait at his bed-side. But life was strong; and when the 
fever left him and the early spring of Maryland came with 
sweet awaking, strength came to the wasted frame. Ah, glori- 
ous '62! Year of hope and triumph to the North; year of great 
and marvelous deeds! Only in the East was the hope deferred 
which maketh the heart sick. 

On the 24th of May, the day before the battle of Winchester, 
which began at Front Royal, the Tall Boys were in the vicinity 
of New Town, with their haversacks filled with rations for a long 
march, on their way and exposed to fire. Crash! came a can- 
non ball through the air, and Sergt. Bloss sank to the ground 
— not dead, but living as by miracle. The ball had passed di- 
rectly beneath his shoulder, carrying away the haversack under 
his arm. The phenomena of concussion, subjects of special 
interest to scientists, were most clearly exhibited in the black- 
ened surface of the body and arm, and in the utter lack of 
strength which resulted. Next day found the soldier on the 
ambulance train, unable yet to enter the ranks. On the 9th of 
August was fought the battle of Cedar Mountain — Slaughter's 
Mountain, the confederates called it — in Pope's campaign. The 
Tall Boys had been advanced as skirmishers to the top of the 
adjacent mountain. The battle raged with varying results. 



68 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



The enemy advanced between this mountain and our army, 
and held the ground at nightfall, unconscious of the nearness of 
our boys upon the ridge. Amid indescribable peril the be- 
leaguered Hoosiers threaded their way in the darkness through 
the lines of the foe to their anxious comrades. The second 
battle of Bull Run was fought in the last of August, General 
Pope sustaining a severe defeat. The discomfited commander 
immediately resigned. Chantilly followed. Stevens fell; and 
heroic Kearney, riding with his bridle in his teeth and his 
sword in his only hand, met his death on the field. Our sol- 
diers were disorganized, and leader there was none. And then, 
amid the dismay of those who loved the Union, commenced the 
invasion of Maryland by the Southern army, and — 

— Lee marched over the mountain wall — 
Over the mountains, winding down, 
Horse and foot, into Frederick Town. 

Immense armies were now massed in the vicinity of Washing- 
ton. McClellan, who had been again placed at the head of the 
forces defending the Federal city, was fearful of any movement 
which might leave the Capital exposed. And now occurred 
one of the strangest events of the war. 

General Lee divided his army, sending Stonewall Jackson to 
capture Harper's Ferry, and directing General D. H. Hill to 
move from Frederick to South Mountain. The latter was in- 
tensely displeased with the order he received, and threw the 
dispatch upon the ground in contempt. Nevertheless, he sul- 
lenly obeyed and moved forward. And thus the great army of 
the Confederacy was divided in three, for a series of rapid 
movements, the leader trusting to General McClellan's igno- 
rance oi his plans for success. On the 13th of September 
Sergeant Bloss commanded a skirmish line in the advance upon 
Frederick. There was a pause in the march, and the soldier 
boys threw themselves down upon the grass for a short rest. It 
was about 9 o'clock in the morning. The day was fair, and 
there was nothing to indicate that thousands of men bearing 
engines of death had left the scene but a few hours before. 

"What is that, Mitchell?" asked the Sergeant of a companion. 

"An envelope," was the reply. 

"Hand it to me." 

On picking up the package which lay at his feet, Mitchell 
found two cigars and a folded letter, the former of which he 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 69 

playfully divided, and the latter he gave to the officer. It was 
the dispatch of General Lee. The orders for the movements of 
the various corps were given in full. The writer showed his 
reliance upon McClellan's ignorance of his designs for the suc- 
cess of the movements and the safety of the army. No time 
was lost in forwarding the Confederate dispatch to the com- 
mandant. No more valuable discovery could have been made. 
What infinite possibilities must have presented themselves to 
the mind of McClellan as he reviewed the situation ! What an 
opportunity seemed now offered! To relieve our boys at Har- 
per's Ferry, to capture Hill at South Mountain, and to over- 
whelm the weakened army of Lee, would be practically to close 
the war. Not all this, we know, was achieved. Harper's Ferry 
was unhappily surrendered to Stonewall Jackson. But Hill 
was driven back from South Mountain, and General Lee soon 
saw that his plans were discovered and his scheme of invasion 
was ruined, and moved quickly to a better position on the 
Antietam, there to stand the shock of our advance. 

The columns of the press and the pages of history devoted 
to the Lost Dispatch would fill volumes.* Singularly, all con- 
nected with it have been connected with the educational world. 
The writer of the order passed his closing years as President of 
Washington and Lee University, and the recipient and the dis- 
coverer were contemporaneously President of the Arkansas 
State University and State Superintendent of Indiana. 

Sunrise on the 17th of September ushered in the terrible 
conflict of Antietam, or Sharpsburgh. The safety of the cap- 
ital hung in the balance. When darkness fell twenty thousand 
men lay dead or wounded on the field. Among the brave boys 
smitten but not killed by the leaden hail was Sergeant Bloss, 
who received the appointment of first lieutenant to succeed 
Van Buskirk, the latter succeeding to the captaincy through 
the death of Kopp. The Capital was saved, and the invasion 
of Maryland had miserably failed. Still, the army of Lee was 
not captured, but retired with broken ranks only to recruit for 
another invasion. 

An advance on the Confederate Capital under Fighting Joe, 
in the spring of 1863, was repulsed in the first days of May, at 
Chancellorsville, where brave Stonewall fell in the-hour of vic- 

'•'See Am. Cyclopedia, Annual for 1862, p. 140; Barnes's School History of the United 
States, p. 241. 



70 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



tory, slain by a mistaken lire from his own lines. Here, Lieu- 
tenant Bloss was again wounded, though slightly. Fighting 
Joe organized his defeated columns to defend Washington, and 
Lee moved rapidly to the northward to invade Pennsylvania. 
Through the 1st, 2d and 3d of July Lieutenant Bloss stood 
upon the horrid field of Gettysburg, while batteries thundered, 
the earth shook, and the air was hot with the sulphurous breath 
of hell; while General Meade, "Four Eyed George," seeming 
to use all the visual organs he was fabled to possess, and Su- 
perb Hancock, never more splendid in manly strength and 
beauty than in the inspiration of battle, hurled back the tide 
of secession. 

The turning point of the war was past, and the Union for- 
tunes rose. In August the Tall Boys were ordered to the West. 
General Sherman moved upon Georgia, the work shop, granary, 
storehouse and arsenal of the Confederacy, and closed the mills, 
the stores, the factories, the foundries and the armories which 
had supplied the necessities of life and the munitions of war 
to the armies of the Confederate States. In the battle of lie- 
saca, May 15, 1864, Captain Bloss — promoted twelve days 
earlier — was wounded for the third time, and again lay amid 
the sufferers in the long rows of the hospital. The following 
August found him at the capture of Atlanta. On the 17th of 
October he resigned, on account of ill health, having served 
nearly through the war, and having been exposed to fire in at 
least fifteen battles. 

Such, in meager outline, was the career of one of our soldier 
boys. Despite his youth, his long sickness, and his repeated 
wounds, he won a very honorable rank in the army. How- 
ever, the value of a soldier's services is not always to be esti- 
mated by his epaulettes. More bravery, more endurance, more 
faithfulness, more influence for good, more contributions to 
success may belong to a less distinguished soldier than to a 
general ; and I know of none to whom a soldier's honors are 
more deservedly given than to the subject of this sketch. 

In the winter of 1864 Mr. Bloss pursued post-graduate 
studies, and the next year taught in New Philadelphia. His 
rise in the profession of teaching was rapid. For four years — 
till 1870 — h<\was principal of the Academy at Orleans. Then 
he was chosen principal of the Female High School at New 
Albany. He remained for five years in charge of this school. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 71 



His graduating classes were distinguished for numbers and for 
scholarship, and under his training many teachers were pre- 
pared for their profession. In 187;") he was advanced to the 
superintend ency of the city schools of Evansville — the second 
city in size in Indiana, and thus became a member of the State 
Board. In 1880 he was elected Superintendent of Public In- 
struction. At the head of the State Department his high abil- 
ities were shown in every phase of his work. 

For years he had been an eminent and practical worker in 
the Institutes. He now gave direction to this work through- 
out the State bv issuing an Outline for Institute Instruction — 
the first of the kind issued in Indiana — for the summer of 1881. 
Since then the Outlines have been published annually, and have 
won the highest praise from the entire country, that of 1882, 
also prepared under his direction, being appropriated largely to 
the use of other States. 

During the first year of his term Superintendent Bloss re- 
tained in the Department as chief clerk Mr. John W. Hol- 
combe, who had served in the same capacity with Mr. Smart, 
and who is now Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

The financial statistics of the Department received the most 
careful and patient attention. The work in this line recalled 
the time of Superintendent Pugg. The Superintendent prepared 
an additional form for auditors' reports, to guard more effectu- 
ally the revenues raised by special tuition taxes. County offi- 
cers had many reports returned for explanation of obscurities, 
and for correction of the errors that are inevitable in the man- 
agement of such large sums of money by so many different per- 
sons and in so extensive and complicated a system of ac- 
counts. The good results of this rigid scrutiny of the returns 
were everywhere apparent, and by none were the Superintend- 
ent's efforts more highly appreciated than by those officers on 
whom fell heavier labors in consequence. 

Nothing seemed to escape Superintendent Bloss's observation. 
A city which contained a large nuifeber of students from abroad, 
in attendance at a private school, secured an undue share of the 
school revenue by including these students in the reports of 
enumeration of school population. This practice, which had 
resulted in the accumulation of a "surplus revenue fund" un- 
known to the law, was summarily stopped by the Superintend- 
ent's characteristic and somewhat famous decision: " Persons 



72 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



residing temporarily within a corporation for the purpose of 
studying at a school or college there located, do not acquire a 
legal residence therein, and the trustees of such corporation have 
no more right to enumerate them than they have to enumerate a Sun- 
day school picnic from a neighboring county, that they might chance to 
find spending a day within their borders.''' People readily under- 
stand a decision of that kind. 

The keen sagacity and the determination of the Superintend- 
ent were shown in the unraveling of a plot, the history of 
which forms a chapter of romance almost as absorbing as that 
of the Diamond Necklace. The question lists of the State 
Board were abstracted by unknown hands from the sealed 
packets, and sold secretly among applicants for teachers li- 
censes in some counties of the State, to the scandal and cha- 
grin of school officers. Suspicion was all at sea. Our ad- 
mirable system of examinations, the despair of all others, was 
in jeopardy. To trace out the malfeasance was a task worthy 
of a Pinkerton. I have not space to describe the plot and 
counter-plot, the cunning of the malefactors, the unerring 
choice of assistants by the Superintendent in the forming of a 
novel " secret service " of the Department, and the ingenious 
methods adopted by him to accomplish the result. The end 
was gained. A wholesome lesson was taught the youth of the 
State, and a warning was given to public servants, which will 
not soon be forgotten. 

During the term of Superintendent Bloss there was no great 
educational exhibition, neither was there any material change 
in the school system. But everywhere was there growth and 
prosperity, and the Department was administered justly, skill- 
fully, and magnanimously. 

Superintendent Bloss shared the fate of all his colleagues in 
the Republican defeat of 1882. Since retiring from the Depart- 
ment he has held the position of Superintendent of the Muncie 
schools. No educator iu the State is more beloved by the peo- 
ple, and noue have received -higher State honors in the power 
of his party to bestow. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



73 




XII. JOHN WALKER HOLCOMBE. 

TERMS 1883 — . 

The cause of freedom is never fully won. To every genera- 
tion is committed its sacred trust. To some families it is given 
to be eminent in each succeeding generation in the service of 
the people and the State. 

At the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, we are told 
by family tradition, Philemon Holcombe, then a student in 
Hampden- Sidney College, left the quiet seats of learning to en- 
list in the Virginia militia. No details are preserved of his mil- 
itary service, but it must have been honorable, for in the me- 
morable campaign of LaFayette in Virginia he was already a 



74 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



Colonel and on the stall' of the General. In company with that 
noble representative of the chivalry of France, and not far from 
the presence of the great Washington, he witnessed at York- 
town the surrender of Cornwallis, the closing scene of the most 
glorious conflict of all time. His acquaintance with the hero 
Marquis had ripened into friendship, and when the latter after 
many years, now illustrious also for services to liberty at home, 
visited the United States in 1824, the venerable Colonel made a 
pilgrimage to Richmond to meet the guest of the people. He 
journeyed in his carriage of state from his seat in Amelia connty, 
and beside the coachman on the box might have been seen the 
white wool of "Uncle Jerry," once the "likely'' body servant 
of the dashing young officer. The meeting was cordial and 
affecting. The two old men, it is said, rushed into each other's 
arms in the manner of the French. And Uncle Jerry was re- 
cognized and called by name by "Massa'' LaFayette. 

Life at "The Oaks," the Holcombe homestead, was of the old 
Virginia type, now found only in the pictures of novelists and 
the recollections of old families. Here grew up the sons and 
daughters of the Revolutionary soldier — one of whom, William 
James by name, was to labor no less earnestly than his father, 
though with the weapons of peace, in behalf of human freedom. 

The careful student of history need not be reminded that the 
advocates of emancipation first arose in Virginia. 'William 
James Holcombe was a remarkable man. A skilled physician 
in successful practice, he entered the ministry of the Methodist 
Protestant church, and till his death was untiring in his minis- 
trations to both the souls and bodies of men. He freed his 
household servants — all that he owned — and those who wished 
to emigrate to Liberia he aided to make the voyage. One of 
them he had educated for the work of a missionary in that 
country. He labored with tongue and pen to promote the Uto- 
pian scheme of African colonization; and finally he resolved to 
emigrate himself to the then far West, in order that his sons 
might escape the unfavorable influences of slavery — one of them 
having been chosen by John Warwick, a bachelor uncle for 
whom he was named, as the heir to a rich plantation on the 
James. Early in the thirties Dr. Holcombe departed from the 
Old Dominion to make his home in a free State. For eight 
years he lived at Madison, Ind., and then removed to Laporte 
county, where he had already purchased lands. 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 75 

• lames Philemon, the eldest son, remained in the South, where 
lie had married, and became professor of law in the University 
of Virginia. William Henry ehose the profession of medicine, 
lived for many years at Natchez, and finally settled at New 
Orleans. He is recognized as an authority on the malignant 
fevers of the South, and also as an elegant writer in general 
literature and poetry, and on subjects of theological and spec- 
ulative interest. Several years ago he was elected President of 
the National Homoeopathic Association. John Warwick, after 
graduation from Washington and Lee University, followed his 
parents to Indiana. In Laporte he entered upon the practice of 
the law, married a daughter of John 0. Walker, Sr., and died at 
the beginning of a career full of promise, leaving an only child, 
the subject of this sketch. 

The two families thus united are interesting as representa- 
tives of opposite phases of American life. So thoroughly iden- 
tified are the Walkers with the development of Indiana that I 
do not hesitate to prolong my sketch with a review of their 
history. After the war for independence Benjamin Walker, a 
veteran soldier, returned to his home in Lancaster county, Pa. 
During the war the Indians were incited by the British to un- 
wonted outrages, and in one of their attacks had murdered the 
father of the absent patriot. It chanced one night at a tavern 
that Benjamin heard two drunken Indians describe the father's 
death, boasting of their share in it. Toward morning the war- 
riors departed, and Benjamin and his brother followed. Over- 
taking them on a high river bank, a desperate struggle occurred, 
the combatants grappling with each other, and Benjamin and 
his adversary rolling down the bank into the stream, where he 
held the Indian under water by main strength till he was 
drowned. For this deed, done in time of peace, the brothers 
were outlawed by proclamation of the Governor, but defied ar- 
rest and took to the woods with their rifles. At last Benjamin 
and his wife, Ann Crawford, a refined and delicate woman, 
succeeded in embarking with their two boys on the Ohio. In 
canoes they descended the river to the mouth of the creek in 
Dearborn county where the brave Loughery and his men had 
perished but a few years before. Here he made his home, built 
a mill, and acquired wealth and influence; and here he some- 
times entertained Daniel Boone, of Kentucky. 

His son John 0. Walker was a type of the energetic, intel- 



76 BIOGRAPHIES OF 



ligent pioneer business men who took the lead in developing 
the resources of the State, in transforming the wilderness into 
a mighty commonwealth. Largely interested in the agricul- 
tural and milling interests of Shelby county, we see him now a 
State Senator, now a contractor and builder of the Michigan 
Road — one of the plank roads of the early day — later an incor- 
porator, with John Hendricks and others, of the first railway 
built in the State. The story of "Walker's Rail Road" has 
been often told. The Lawrenceburg & Indianapolis Railway 
was chartered in 1832. Unexpected obstacles met the con- 
tractors, and many persons despaired of the success of the un- 
dertaking. If it should not be begun within three years the 
charter would be forfeited. John Walker said that some part 
of the road would be in working order by July 4, 1834; and so 
it was. The rails were of hewn timber and the locomotives 
consumed good oats and hay; but the line carried passengers 
to and fro between Shelbyville and the fair grounds. This ad- 
vertised the road, showed the determination of the director, 
and inspired public confidence. Soon afterward Mr. Walker 
removed with his family to Laporte, where large property in- 
terests demanded his presence. His sons were like himself, 
men of energy and business enterprise, builders of houses and 
mills and railways. His third son and namesake, John C. 
Walker, Jr., has been mentioned in a preceding sketch of this 
series as rendering valuable services to education, while a mem- 
ber of the Legislature of 1853. He was nominated for the office 
of Lieutenant-Governor, and had he been old enough to accept 
the honor would have become Governor of Indiana on the 
death of the eloquent Willard. He became a Colonel in the 
Union army, and was afterward Agent of State. 

John Walker Holcombe was born at Laporte, November 18, 
1853. A few years later his grandparents returned to Virginia 
to spend their remaining years, and there the young mother 
and child made them frequent visits. The War of the Seces- 
sion found them at the Amelia homestead. Finally the in- 
fluence of friends on both sides secured the measures necessary 
for their return home. A romantic journey in the track of 
armies brought them in the fall of 1863 to Natchez, then in com- 
mand of General Gresham, where the Union lines were entered. 

An event of the following year enlisted the attention of the 
civilized world, and gave rise to controversies which have filled 



STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 77 

volumes. Professor James P. Holcombe, of Virginia, then a 
member of the Confederate Congress, and Horace Greely, of 
New York, essayed overtures looking toward the restoration of 
peace. The story of the Niagara Conference affair is an inter- 
esting chapter in history, and to this day thousands of readers 
are ready to dispute as to where the responsibility of its failure 
lies. The attempt, however, was a noble one. 

The Professor's nephew was at this time a small school boy 
in Laporte, little troubled by these things. There in the public 
schools he passed through the grammar grades, and then spent 
several years in Virginia at the Bellevue High School, which 
had been established by Professor Holcombe after the war. At 
the age of nineteen he entered the junior class of Harvard Uni- 
versity, and was duly graduated therefrom in 1875. 

DViring the years of his student life at Fair Harvard a new 
chapter had been added to the educational history of our State. 
The Northern Indiana Normal School had opened its doors at 
Valparaiso. Its founder, Henry B. Brown, seemed the pos- 
sessor of Aladdin's lamp. In two years students had gathered 
in from all the States, dormitories had arisen as by magic, and 
the quiet city was transformed into one of the most remarkable 
educational centers in America. In the fall after his gradua- 
tion Mr. Holcombe was engaged in this institution as instructor 
in Latin, Greek, and History. He was eminently successful as 
a teacher, but at the end of two years of faithful service he re- 
signed his position in order to pursue his own studies to greater 
advantage. Desiring to see something of the West, he spent a 
term at the University of Iowa, and was graduated from the 
law department with the class of 1878. 

In the following year he was appointed by State Supt. Smart 
chief clerk of the Department of Public Instruction, a position 
which he retained during part of the term of Mr. Bloss. Having 
returned to Valparaiso, he was nominated for the State Super- 
intendency by the Democratic convention of 1882, and elected 
in the fall, while not yet twenty-nine years of age. 

The political canvass of the present year is just closed. As 
I write, the published returns of the election of 1884 show that 
the people have given his administration a well-deserved in- 
dorsement, in the re-election of Mr. Holcombe by a handsome 
majority. 

Associated with him as I am, it would be inappropriate for 



78 UROGRAPHIES OF STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. 



me to comment upon the present administration of the Depart- 
ment. But for those who wish to review the work of the past 
two years I quote the following summary recently made by 

The American: 

" To state briefly the work of this administration, it is to be 
noticed that in Mr. Holcombe's term a summary has been made 
of the rulings of the Department from its organization, and the 
best and most comprehensive edition of the school law has been 
issued. American Literature has been taught in the teachers' 
county institutes for the first time. A uniform course of study 
has been adopted for the country schools of the entire State. 
The first uniform examination and graduation of pupils from 
the country schools have been held. The first Arbor Day cele- 
bration has been conducted, and with signal success. « The 
Record of Indiana in the War of the Secession has been brought 
to the attention of teachers and pupils for the first time. The 
first State outline of township Institute work has been issued. 
The first circular letter in many years has been addressed to 
trustees, urging upon them such a course as experience shows 
is most conducive to the welfare of the schools. The State ex- 
aminations have been Americanized and modernized to meet 
the demands of the time, and by a plan of supplementing re- 
lieved of much of their former drudgery. Practical changes 
have been made in the blank forms of reports, and better re- 
sults have been reached in the financial statistics of the State. 
An exhibit of the State at the Madison Exhibition was so effi- 
ciently prepared and in every way so worthy as to win the high- 
est praise accorded to any part of the exhibition. The Super- 
intendent has been a credit and an honor to the State in his 
manly and wise course at Louisville, and in his able participa- 
tion in the work of the Department of Superintendence at 
Washington. The papers and books of the office have been 
classified and prepared for permanent preservation, as never 
before. The plan of a State Teachers' Reading Circle has 
been devised and perfected, and is now in practical operation. 
In all this work the Superintendent has borne a leading part." 



